Central Bucks Veterinary Hospital

08/22/2024

📖 The learning and growth never stops here!
📚 On Tuesday after a full day at the clinic, Dr. Esplin spent her evening at a Continuing Education lecture in Blue Bell presented by nationally recognized veterinary parasitologist, Dr. Susan Little.
🧪 The lecture was centered around the growing tick risks in our region and focused most recent advances in early detection, prevention, and treatment of the deadly diseases they cause.
❗️A few points to share with our community that were learned include:
1. There is a new type of tick in our area that is spreading over the past few years called the Longhorn tick. While it carries disease, luckily, it is controlled by Isoxazolines, ingredients found in many oral flea and tick preventatives.
2. They have confirmed that the local tick population has developed resistance to Fipronil, an ingredient commonly found in topical products such as Frontline.
3. The diseases that most ticks carry that make them so dangerous (Anaplasma, Lyme, Ehrlichia, etc.) are starting to evolve to help those ticks better survive through the winter by secreting an anti-freeze like substance. What does this mean? It means that while normal ticks can survive easily on a day to day basis as soon as it goes above 40 degrees F, ticks that carry these diseases can survive in even colder conditions!
This is very important why we now recommend to continue flea and tick prevention during the winter months, as those ticks are even more likely to transmit these dangerous diseases when they bite (and within hours!).
🐾 Please do not hesitate to contact our office to discuss this new information further!

08/16/2024

🎉 Did you know that our 1 year open anniversary is coming up next week?
❗ Lauren and Sandi also celebrated their full-time 1 year anniversaries last week! Both of these ladies have been very important to the team from the first day. Did you know the team went through a grueling 2 week orientation before we opened? It is even more difficult to start an entire team from scratch where everyone is learning at the same time and no one knows each other. They did a wonderful job taking every stride with an open mindset, a problem solving work ethic, and a creative stream of contributions to better the hospital.
🐾 Thank you ladies for all of your effort over this year, we cannot wait to see what the next brings! Happy Anniversary!

08/14/2024

☀ As the summer comes to a close we want to wish a well-off sending to our veterinary students, Owen and Zosia! Owen was with us for the past full year as he prepared his applications for vet school. We are so proud of him as he continues his journey, now with an interest in Veterinary Cardiology after seeing our cases!
👩‍⚕️Zosia is a rising third year veterinary student and has also been instrumental to our team from the start, coming to help the team during her holidays off and sharing her knowledge that she has continued to grow through her studies. We will miss her dearly as she returns to school for the fall semester.
🩺They both are going to make wonderful veterinarians. Thank you for all of your help to our patients, clients, and team members!

08/12/2024

🐾 While the average day in the veterinary field is far from all puppies and kittens (we wish!), we sure do love to share the cuteness to all when we have the chance!
😻 Welcome to the Central Bucks Veterinary Hospital community, Ruby and Felix!

08/10/2024

👀 True faces of patients Chief and Rip, “Give me the infamous cheese please!”
😋 We love SAFELY bribing our patients to make sure they trust the vet and feel as comfortable as possible, kitty cats included!

08/08/2024

😍 Harlem, a beautiful boy that heard the good news of our practice traveled all the way to us from Philadelphia! Wow! The word of our efforts is certainly spreading.
🐾 He is a rare breed, can you guess it ⁉️
👇🏼 Comment your guesses below!

08/06/2024

⁉️Grass Eating ⁉️
🐾 We often get questions in the changing seasons why certain dogs eat grass. It’s a common myth that dogs only eat grass when they are ill and the grass “heals” them.
📚 While this is partially true in some cases, we see the most common reason is actually quite simple! Grass during certain periods of the year and times of the day is higher in sugars than others, being quite tasty to many dogs. The problem with this? Dogs are not ruminants or horses, so they cannot easily digest grass! We have unfortunately seen many dogs end up on the surgery table when they are allowed to gorge themselves on grass and it causes a complete and dangerous obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract. For this reason, it is important to not let your dog graze the day away.
🔙🆙 “But what about if my dog does only eat grass when it is sick?” - This sudden and abnormal urge to eat inedible objects (grass, dirt, wood, furniture, etc.) that can happen in some dogs is considered “pica.” This can be a sign of underlying gastrointestinal diseases such as esophageal reflux, IBD, infections, and many other causes. If you suspect you see your dog do these sudden and “crazed” movements followed by gastrointestinal distress, it is important to talk to your veterinary care team.
🤓 We hope this information helps many understand the “why” to this common dog behavior! Redbone, one of our patients and a common grass-eater, wanted to help share this information to all!

07/10/2024

👂🏽 With all of this heat and humidity, summer swimming, and travel, we are seeing many ear infections. Did you know kitty cats get ear infections too?!
🐱 Aston and Jumanji are two feline patients we have recently seen with bacterial ear infections. Cats can be tricky as they do not show signs or symptoms as commonly as dogs do!
🐾 Main signs to watch for include: a slight tilting of the ear flap, increased scratching of the ear, and/or a head tilt toward the infected ear. It’s certainly important to be mindful of these slight signs or changes with our often stoic feline family members.

07/09/2024

A beautiful surprise from a client and patient today. Thank you Grover ❤️ We are so happy you are feeling so much better after we addressed your periodontal disease. It is amazing how often we see our patients act like puppies or kittens again without dealing with chronic tooth pain when periodontal disease is properly addressed!

07/04/2024

🇺🇸 Happy Independence Day! 🌟

Our office is closed today for our team to celebrate with their families, but we will be back in with normal hours tomorrow from 8 am to 4 pm.

06/16/2024

🥳 Happy Father’s Day to all the dad’s of all of our beloved two- and four-legged creatures!

⁉️ Did you know the top five fathers of the wild animal kingdom include the mountain gorilla, wolf, emperor penguin, marmoset, and the seahorse?

🔎 Read more about each reason here ➡️ https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/5-remarkable-animal-dads

06/15/2024

😍 Sadie enjoying our nature trail after her visit with us yesterday! Her owner is schooling to become a dog trainer herself, and has been very diligent to use positive aspects of every vet visit to help Sadie be as comfortable as possible with clinic visits. She sent us this picture as they relaxed. We love seeing our patients and clients enjoying the trail we designed for this purpose!

06/13/2024

🐾 Meet Ms. Missie (and her adorable smile)!

🧪 Missie came to us with a subcutaneous mass in her under arm region that recently grew and her owner was concerned it was affecting her quality of life by impairing her proper mobility. She also had a history of a liver enzyme abnormality that progressively worsened over the past few years and had been previously recommended to take a daily liver supplement for it.

💉 Fine-needle aspiration (taking a few cells with a needle) and cytology (microscopic evaluation) of the mass was performed to investigate what the mass was, determine if it was related to the elevating liver enzyme, and to help guide our surgical approach. Thankfully, it was determined by our team that the mass was consistent with a lipoma – a benign, fatty tumor.

🩻 An abdominal ultrasound was performed additionally before the surgery to remove her lipoma to further investigate the cause of the liver elevations. We were happy to see it revealed no obvious masses of the liver and the liver appeared appropriately functional for surgery, but the radiologist did find a uniformly abnormal appearance to the liver lobes. This can be caused by diffuse cancers such as lymphoma, copper storage disease problems, metabolic changes, hepatitis, or modular hyperplasia. For this reason, her owners elected to have us do a liver biopsy while she was under general anesthesia for the mass removal.

🩺 The surgery was a success and the biopsy removed the guess-work and gave us our answer with good news! The biopsy results came back as nodular hyperplasia of the liver, a benign condition that does not result in any liver impairment or larger health concerns. With this information, we were able to provide Missie and her owners with the best plan going forward, which even included Missie to stop taking the liver supplement.

🚶‍♂️Missie strutted limp-free into our hospital for her suture removal appointment today. We are so happy for Missie and her wonderful owners for the outcome!

06/02/2024

🤩 You or your pet may have already witnessed her positive attitude and detailed patient care around our hospital in the past few months, but we are excited to formally introduce to you Margaret, one of our wonderful veterinary technicians!

A little bit about Margaret:
🩺 Margaret earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Science with a minor in both Equine Business and Equine Science and Breeding in 2022. She has a particular interest in cytology and surgery and dreams of applying to veterinary school in the near future.

🐾 Margaret was a pet sitter for years prior to joining the veterinary field in 2018. You may see her taking pictures of your pets around the hospital (with permission, of course!). Margaret has a horse (Sammy), a dog (Rip Wheeler). and a cat (Tito). Outside of veterinary medicine, Margaret enjoys concerts, working out, hiking with her dog, and traveling.

05/30/2024

✍🏼 Christine, an editor and writer with the Bucks County Parent, reached out to us for advice on successfully and safely introducing babies and older family members to a household with pets.
👀Check out our tips and more!

The first step to fostering a positive relationship between your pet and child is to start before baby even arrives.

05/24/2024

🇺🇸 We hope everyone has a safe and relaxing holiday weekend. We are here today (Friday) from 8 am - 4 pm to service you and your pet’s needs!

🐾 Please note that our office will be closed on Memorial Day to allow our hardworking team to spend time with their families. Our hospital will reopen on Tuesday, May 27 to resume our normal hours from 8 am - 5 pm!

☀️ In preparation for the weekend festivities (🎆), please remember the following to help keep your pets safe and happy:
👉 Keep your pets indoors during firework festivities to avoid panicked escapes
👉 If your pets are nervous about loud noises (fireworks, thunderstorms, parties, etc.), keep them in a quiet, enclosed place where they are accustomed. Pull the blinds to keep the flashing lights away from their view and turn on white noise (fans, television, radio, etc.). Adaptil (for dogs) or Feliway (for cats) are great natural calming pheromone wall plug-ins to place in their "safe haven" spots. Make it a cozy night in for them!
👉 If your pet remains stressed during loud-noise events, please contacts our office for calming medications that can reduce their anxiety as these events pass.
👉 Avoid common toxic foods for pets including xylitol ("sugar-free" foods and gum), grapes, raisins, avocados, onions, garlic, chocolate, and pork products.
👉 If your pet does experience a medical emergency, please visit our website's "Emergency and After Hours" page (https://www.centralbucksvets.com/contact-us/emergency-and-after-hours/) for local 24/7 Emergency and Specialty Care Centers as well as information for poison control in case of accidental toxin ingestion.

05/16/2024

😷 There are at least 20 tick-borne illness in the United States, many of which Pennsylvania has a particularly high prevalence of. To help keep the public informed, the Pennsylvania Health Department has launched a dashboard (https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/Vectorborne%20Diseases/Pages/Tick%20Diseases.aspx) that tracks four common tick-borne diseases: Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, and babesiosis.

🩺 We diagnose tick-borne diseases in our unprotected patients (yes, even in indoor-only kitties! 🙀) year-round. Unfortunately, successfully checking our pets for ticks is harder than finding a needle in a haystack, as their various life stages (larva, nymph, and adult) are extremely small and can embed themselves anywhere on our pet’s body. Even if an embedded tick is found and removed, disease transmission is likely to have already occurred.

✅ Since our beloved pets can bring these pesky vectors into our homes, keeping them protected is just as important for us as it is for them. This is why our team recommends the use of safe and effective flea and tick preventatives year-round and annual tick-borne parasite screenings!

☀️ We want everyone (two-legged and four-legged) to stay safe and remain protected as they enjoy beautiful Bucks County and beyond!

05/13/2024

❤️ Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers of the two and four-legged variety. We hope you have had a day filled with kisses, cuddles, nuzzles, and all the love in return that you give to yours every day!

05/10/2024

Cookie! He came in for his first puppy visit today and loved our cheese treat bribes 🧀
🍪 Aptly named after cookies and cream, he certainly has a unique coloring.
⁉️ Can you guess his breed? Hint - despite common sayings that this breed can be tricky for nail trims, Cookie was a brave little gentleman for his!

05/05/2024

🎉 In honor of Cinco de Mayo, we wanted to share our adorable patient, Cookie, in her avocado donut following her spay procedure with us earlier this week.

🌮 Cookie also had a few retained deciduous teeth (“baby teeth”), a finding we see with a variety of juvenile patients. These are important to remove as retained baby teeth cause “malocclusions” (bite problems) and greater risks for periodontal disease as they age.

🥑 Cookie is on her way to recovery without the need for “doggie braces” (yup, that’s right, dogs need braces too sometimes!) since her owner and our team were diligent about her dental care!

04/30/2024

🏎 A pretty cool story we just had to share!

🏆 Pictured here is Jason, a client of ours, that brought his cat, Levi, to us all the way from the Poconos (do not worry, he did drive the speed limit!) in seek of our high-quality care.

🐱 Jason is very attentive to his animals and discussed with our well-experienced veterinary technician, Lauren, his concern for Levi experiencing oral pain after he was seen by an emergency center for a tooth root abscess of one of his front canine ("fang") teeth.

🩺 Lauren helped Jason schedule an appointment with us, at which time Dr. Esplin crafted a surgical plan that would set Levi up for success. He ultimately lost a large portion of the tooth on his own before the surgery; however, the bone around the tooth was still quite inflamed and an abnormal connection between the mouth and the nose (“oronasal fistula”) had formed, leaving him at high-risk for sinus infections and other abscess problems.

🦷 Levi did very well through his procedure. Dr. Esplin removed the diseased canine tooth remnant along with the surrounding diseased bone, and created a surgical "flap" for the area to seal the fistula. While he was under general anesthesia, a detailed oral examination and full mouth dental radiographs were performed, which revealed moderate disease of his upper molars as well. These were also removed due to the large degree of pathologic changes, alleviating the chronic pain these diseased teeth would ultimately cause. Levi was a stellar boy for his procedure and healed to be back to his normal self!

➡️ This was in the Fall. Fast forward to this Spring, we received these awesome pictures from Jason who was quite excited about the services he and Levi received. So much so, he added our logo to his racing gear for his competitive endeavors in the Poconos! Check out our comments section for him flying around the track. We are all cheering for you to have a successful season, Jason!

04/21/2024

📚 We truly believe it’s important to never stop learning and growing for our patients, clients, and hospital. That’s why Dr. Esplin and Dr. Perkins are spending their Sunday in lectures at a continuing education course held by Hickory Veterinary Specialists!

📝 Today’s topics that the doctors are digging deep into include:
👉🏼 Neurological Emergencies
👉🏼 Acute, Chronic, and Wind-Up Pain Management
👉🏼 Puppy Neurotypical Behavior and Intervention Principals
👉🏼 Recent Advances in Veterinary Oncology
👉🏼 New Developments in Cataract Treatment and Prevention

🐾 We are proud to practice evidence-based medicine and continue to stay up-to-date to best benefit our patients!

04/17/2024

⚾️ Our team has been working hard so we took them out to the ballpark last week and teamed up with a University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine Alumni gathering!
🏟️ Fortunately the rain held out and we got to see a Phillies win!

04/05/2024

🐐 Did you know that Dr. Esplin also sees small ruminants and was initially in large animal medicine? We love hooved-animals! If you have any goats, sheep, or even camelids that need to be seen that travel well, call our office today to schedule an in-office appointment to establish their care!
🐑 We offer in-hospital appointments to provide our patients preventative medicine as well as diagnostics and treatment of illnesses.
❗Due to our hospital’s design, we can only accommodate patients within our hospital and do not offer ambulatory or farm-side services.

04/05/2024

Blu 👅 and Ellie 🐶

03/28/2024

🏟️“Harper Kelce”, aptly named after Philadelphia greats, hit it out of the park ⚾️ (get it, opening day!) for her spay today. We always prescribe “comfort packs” to be given before each surgery that are given to our patients the evening prior and morning of their surgeries to help each patient’s process be as comfortable and safe as possible for them from admission, to their pre-operative examination, to their catheter placement, to anesthesia induction. It also helps minimize as large of injectable anesthesia doses and needs, making this process even safer for them!
🍯 “Winnie” was as sweet as her name sake as well for her first puppy appointment! We love seeing a healthy and happy St. Bernard puppy!

03/18/2024

Welcome Dex 😻❤️