Quackers
Quackers, a 15yr old goose, came in to see us recently when her owner noticed she was having difficulty getting out of her pond and was quite weak. On examination it was found that she had eggs ready to lay and due to her age it was strongly suspected she had low calcium.
We are pleased to say after electrolytes and calcium supplementation she is now back to her normal self!
Eliza in for a dental
Earlier this week we showed you a picture of a canine removed during a dental.
That canine belonged to Eliza the ferret (currently at Llys Nini RSPCA ).
As her canine was fractured she came in for an anaesthetic and a dental (including dental x-rays) to removed the damaged tooth and give the rest a scale and polish.
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Today is considered "Blue Monday". 💙
Thankfully our pets are usually there to cheer us up.
Like Red who was in a few weeks ago and was happy to walk himself back to reception after his appointment.
😁
Leo had a lot of fun on his first visit to St James and our Neath branch.
He loves water and had a lot of fun playing with the tap 💦
Lots of cats prefer running water to bowls so water fountains can encourage them to drink more.
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Have you noticed any changes in your pets mobility?
As our pets get older, just like us humans, they too can suffer with joint problems. This can show initially in many different ways such as: lameness, not moving around or jumping as much as they used to, not enjoying their favourite thing (like Duke the retriever in the video who loves running for his ball) or maybe you've noticed them over licking a joint?
If this is something that you have been noticing in your pet, help can be given in different ways:
1. 👩⚕️Getting a veterinary health check is always important as knowing the best option and ways to help is always important.
2. ⚖️Keeping our pets at their ideal weight is just as important as we don't want extra weight putting extra stress on the joints. Looking at the type of diet and how much they are fed or perhaps a change to a senior diet that has the extra nutrition support.
3.🐾Making sure they have a healthy amount of exercise daily (walking longer than normal on weekends can cause extra aching) and try to avoid too many steps/hills/unstable ground to be walking on.
4.💊 Pain relief medication prescribed by a veterinary surgeon, joint supplements, regular osteoarthritis injections or having physio/hydro/laser therapy can help with the aches and pains.
Duke seen in the video below is able to get back to enjoying playing in the sea after he started having monthly injections to help with his pain! 🌊
Sometimes surgical intervention may have to take place and then followed up with the previous answers, watching out for any changes and contacting your vets if you feel anything is wrong as you know your pet the best.
If you would like to discuss your pets mobility don't hesitate to get in touch and book an appointment at your local branch!
Today is National Technology Day!
We are very fortunate in this country to have a lot of technology available to us in veterinary medicine to help us diagnose and treat animals.
These include from machines in practice we can test blood and other samples, machines like x-ray, ultrasound and endoscopy, laboratories we can send samples to for a variety of tests and referral centres that have not just specialists but often additional equipment like CT and MRI.
There are also the more unusual technologies that can be very useful to us. In the video below you will see George (belonging to one of our vets) having a very large "pill" being given. This is actually a small camera! It has 4 lenses to get a full view and takes more than 1 photo every second to create a video of the intestines. It often takes 1-2 days to pass through and come out in 💩 where it is gently cleaned and sent to the specialist company to download the information. A medicine specialist then looks at the video and reports back to us.
Not all dogs would tolerate this being administered and if abnormalities are found we may still need to anaesthetise them to perform biopsies.
How to "tyre" out a dog!
Cledwyn and Dewi love playing tug together, an old bicycle tyre is their favourite.
Show us your pictures of your pets favourite toys to play with!
It's the time of year when there is a lot of young and baby wildlife around.
Please before handling or moving anything either phone for advice or look on RSPCA/Gower Bird Hospital websites. A lot of wildlife that gets brought to us often should have been left in the wild.
Obviously some of these youngsters do need to be removed from where they were found and taken to appropriate rehabilitation centres. Below is a video of a baby hedgehog being fed and looked after by one of our nurses whilst awaiting transport to an appropriate centre.
Show off Sunday
Barney's owner has been teaching him a lot of tricks. We were quite impressed by this one which aims for him to help empty the washing machine! 😍
We would love to see photos or videos of your pets and the tricks they can do, please share them below!
🦔Today is National Hedgehog Day🦔
We wanted to share a video of a hedgehog that visits vet Lynsey's garden, who has been named Horis.
Horis is very lucky as his coming and goings are monitored by a wildlife camera, he is offered food to help support him and more importantly he has been bought a house to keep him warm and safe. 🏠🥰
For information on what to do if you find an injured or unwell hedgehog, or how you can help local hedgehogs please take a look at the link below.
https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/wildlife/animals/hedgehogs/garden
We hope everyone has managed to enjoy the Christmas and New Year period.
Boris certainly has, maybe a bit too much, if his energy levels playing with the tree now are anything to go by.
We'd love to see any captions our followers have for this video (please note this is just for fun and not a competition).
😂
Boris is demonstrating exactly what mischief a cat can get up to with a Christmas tree!
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🎄 Christmas is coming🎄
We will post a few tips this week on how to keep your pets safe over the festive period, so keep your eyes peeled!
(Video courtesy of https://www.drvictoriastrong.com/)
As well as caring for all our patients we regularly take in wildlife brought in by members of the public. We assess the animal for injury and then when possible arrange for it to go to a local wildlife rehabilitation centre like the Gower Bird Hospital.
Recently we had a woodpecker brought in and we did our best to provide it with enrichment and food whilst it was under our care.
The Gower Bird Hospital, RSPB and RSPCA have a lot of information on their websites on what to do if you find birds and other wildlife and you are concerned for their welfare.
Travelling to Europe with your pet?
Please see the video below for some information regarding the change to travel requirements as Pet Passports are not valid since we left the EU.
For dog owners: some information about kennel cough as we have been seeing an increased number of dogs affected in the past few weeks.
