Physical Examination For Pets

Your pet cannot tell you how it feels, where it hurts or what's wrong with them. Pets may mask their pain and this is a survival instinct in the wild. A comprehensive physical exam allows us to compile a list of clues that can help us in uncovering a disease. Early detection and treatment are essential to avoid undue suffering and to prolong the quality and longevity of your pet’s life.

As a pet owner, it should be easy for you to detect any changes in your pet's behaviour or eating habits. If your pet is acting abnormally in any way, you should be the first to know about it. This may include such obvious signs as diarrhoea or vomiting, coughing or sneezing, watery eyes or a runny nose, difficulty or accidents during urination or defecation, difficulty in chewing food, difficulty going up and down the stairs or rising from a sitting position.

It may also include acting more sluggish or lethargic than normal, not eating as much as normal, drinking less than normal or drinking more than normal. These signs are more subtle and need more time and careful observation to be noticed.

Such information will allow your veterinarian to focus on specific body systems in order to reach a diagnosis regarding the cause of the abnormalities. A thorough physical examination is where any such diagnosis starts, although additional testing (such as blood tests, x-rays and ultrasonography) may be necessary to accurately diagnose certain conditions.

Physical examination is an essential part of the routine healthcare for any pet. A thorough physical exam explores all parts of your pet's body, from the nose all the way to its tail.

In addition to helping your veterinarian determine what is wrong with your pet when it is not feeling well, regular physical examinations may also help detect early signs of disease in pets which are still acting normally. Often, many painful conditions do not become obvious until they are in a seriously advanced stage. In this case, your veterinarian may be able to help you treat the problem before your pet begins to feel badly.

Physical examinations are important for pets of any age. However, as your pet starts to age, they become even more important. Your vet may even advise more frequent physical examinations for your pet as it ages. Our pets age much faster than we do, so regular physical examinations will help you and your vet to detect any abnormalities which may affect your pet's quality of life.

By finding these abnormalities early, it is often possible to make changes to your pet's routine activities, which eliminate or slow the progress of diseases such as heart failure, kidney failure, arthritic pain, dental disease and many more.

A physical exam is a complete hands-on assessment of your pet’s health status. Veterinarians are trained to detect disease by listening (auscultation), feeling (palpation) and looking (visual observation and evaluation). First, we weigh your pet and measure its temperature, heart rate and respiration rate. After taking these basic measurements, your pet is examined from head to tail, during which all vital organs along the way are gently palpated. Every body system is checked for disease.

During the physical exam, veterinarians assess the risks your pet has for contracting preventable diseases caused by internal parasites (heartworm and intestinal worms) and external parasites (fleas, lice, ticks and mites) and viruses. You will receive advice on how to prevent these disease-causing agents with medications and/or vaccinations.

As a pet owner, you are responsible for periodically performing a physical examination on your pet. Such a physical exam is not difficult to learn, and most vets would gladly show an owner how to do it and what to look for.

Here are step-by-step guidelines that I hope will help you understand more about physical examinations in pets and help to get you started:

1) EYES

As a pet owner, you should be able to examine the eyes for any abnormalities. Once an abnormality is found, your vet should further examine the eyes with an ophthalmoscope for cataracts, glaucoma, corneal injuries and retinal disease. Some retinal diseases indicate systemic problems such as high blood pressure and infections. Glaucoma screening may be recommended for some animals.

2) EARS

Your pet's ears should be examined to make certain they are healthy and that there is no evidence of infection, inflammation or other abnormalities such as polyps. Ear infections and parasites are quite common. Your vet can further examine the ears with an otoscope, an instrument used to see into the long and angled ear canal to the eardrum of dogs and cats.

3) MOUTH

The mouth is visually checked for lesions and abnormal growths, which could be tumours. Teeth are examined for tartar build-up, abscesses, fractures and missing teeth. Gums are felt for how moist or dry they are and checked for signs of gingivitis (inflammation of the gums) or ulcers. Gum colour should be examined, making sure they a normal pink colour and not pale (from anaemia), yellow (as a result of icterus, often due to liver failure) or cyanotic (as a result of breathing difficulty). The gums should also be gently pressed and observed for capillary refill time. Do not forget to observe for bad breath.

4) HEART & LUNGS

As a pet owner, you should learn to feel for your pet's pulse to check its pulse rate, to make sure it is not too fast or too slow and that there are no "missed" beats. You should also learn to check its respiratory rate. Find out from your vet what the normal range for the pulse and respiratory rate is for your pet. If you find anything amiss, your vet should be able to confirm this by auscultating the heart and lungs with a stethoscope and by rechecking its pulse rate. By using a stethoscope, your vet will be able to listen to your pet's heart and lung sounds, detect for heart murmurs, abnormal heart rhythms and abnormally harsh or abnormally quiet sounds in the lung fields.

5) ABDOMEN

You should be competent enough to palpate your pet's abdomen to make certain you cannot feel any abnormal masses within the abdomen. Any indication of pain during abdominal palpation is also abnormal. Your vet should be experienced enough to palpate the abdomen for anomalies of organ size and character, such as enlargement of the liver or spleen, changes in kidney size, bladder stones, tumours and intestine abnormalities.

6) SKIN

The skin should be examined for hair loss, lesions, redness, lumps, bumps or abnormal growths. Observe closely for skin parasites and for signs of itching, scratching, biting or even a dull, flaky hair coat.

7) LYMPH NODES

The externally-palpable lymph nodes are palpated for symmetry, tenderness and to make sure they are of the normal size and not swollen.

8) NERVOUS SYSTEM

The nervous system is evaluated by observing your pet’s behaviour and testing for reflexes.

9) EXTERNAL GENITALIA

The external genitalia should be examined for abnormal discharge, colour, swelling or growths. Your vet should be able to further palpate the prostate gland for abnormal size and character.

10) STANCE & GAIT

Your pet's manner of standing and walking is observed for signs of lameness. Joints are palpated to detect tenderness and inflexibility that may indicate problems such as arthritis.

Animal Hoarding

Can you count how many cats there are in this room? Sorry, no prizes for the correct answer!

Recently I was approached by two different friends on two separate occasions, who were faced with problems arising from their neighbour's many cats. One of these had nineteen cats and the other, more than twenty. These cats were entering into their gardens, their rooftops, sitting on and scratching the paintwork off their cars and creating a mess in their porch, not to mention the defecation, urination and spread of fleas and other parasites in their homes.

My friends may not have known it then, but this was clearly a case of animal hoarding.

Thousands of animals around the world suffer and some die in squalid surroundings, devoid of adequate food and water, yet their owners insist nothing is wrong. Standing in three inches of faeces, breathing acrid ammonia in the air, and in plain view of dead and dying dogs, one woman said, “I never hurt any dogs, I love my babies. The fact is I protect them.” Can you see anything wrong with this picture?

An animal hoarder is defined as someone who accumulates a large number of animals, fails to provide minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation and veterinary care and fails to act on the deteriorating condition of the animals (including disease, starvation and even death) or the environment (severely overcrowded and unsanitary conditions) or the negative impact of the collection on their own health and well-being.

An animal hoarder must be distinguished from a person who keeps an unusually large number of pets, but who cares for them properly. A hoarder must also be distinguished from an animal breeder, who would have a large number of animals as a result of their business. The distinguishing feature is that a hoarder fails to provide the animals with adequate food, water, sanitation and veterinary care, and…is in denial about this inability to provide adequate care.

Animal hoarders are well-known to vets. Collectors exist in almost every community, large or small, rural or urban. They are in a state of denial that prevents them from seeing the filth or understanding that their animals are sick, dying or dead. As animal hoarding is linked to psychiatric problems such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), addiction, dementia, attachment disorder and focal delusion, animal hoarders need help, often psychiatric in nature but also emotional support.

According to statistics, most animal hoarders either collect cats or dogs. Men more often collect dogs and women are more prone to collecting cats. Nearly two-thirds of animal hoarders are women and 70 per cent are unmarried. A large proportion are 60 years of age or older, most are single, divorced or widowed and almost half live alone. Social isolation is common but appears to result from the hoarding behaviour rather than causing it. Most animal hoarders start their collecting even from childhood. Many have no telephone, public utilities or plumbing, and many hoarded inanimate objects as well.

Animal hoarders often adopt a parental role towards their animals. This results in their reluctance to remove any animals, even when adequate homes become available. Many of them will emphasise that their animals give them "unquestioning and unconditional love." They tend to personalise and anthropomorphise their pets and view themselves as rescuers of suffering or unloved animals. Other characteristics included the beliefs that they have special abilities to communicate or empathise with animals, that their neighbours or the public fail to recognise the care they give to their animals and that saving animals is their life's mission.

Dead or sick animals are often discovered in reported cases, yet in most of these cases the hoarder would not acknowledge the problem. Most of the time, animal faeces and urine are found accumulated in living areas and often on the hoarder's very own bed. Their justifications for their behaviour includes an intense love of animals, the feeling that the animals are their surrogate children, the belief that no one else would or could take care of them and the fear that the animals would be euthanised.

The problems that arise from animal hoarding are not only confined to the animals, but also extend to humans and the community surrounding these hoarders. Animal hoarding is at the root of a string of human health problems including horrendous sanitation, fire hazards, zoonotic diseases and neglect of oneself and dependants.

Close friends, families and neighbours are generally the first to know when the act of ‘loving animals’ changes to ‘hoarding animals’ but seldom have the information and understanding needed to effectively intervene. Learning about animal hoarding, understanding its characteristics, how it develops, interventions and preventions can help both the people involved and the animals.

Early intervention is the key to preventing the suffering caused by animal hoarding, yet relatives, friends, and neighbours who see the neglect in its early stages often misunderstand it and fail to report it until conditions become tragic. Obsessive hoarding consumes all available resources of time, money and emotion and eventually squeezes family and friends out of the picture. Once this happens, social isolation sets in as acquaintances eventually become exasperated and give up their failed attempts to help.

If you know an animal hoarder, or live beside one, take action early on, while the door is still open!

Saving Money On Your Pet

To quote the famous Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), "Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?"

But with the present global financial crisis currently affecting almost all countries across the globe, the numbers of people experiencing job losses and financial difficulties are still steadily rising everyday. Unfortunately, pet owners are not spared in this respect. In their attempts to make ends meet, every extra expenditure on their pet is now a concern. By wanting to save some money, they have become penny-wise, pound-foolish and have cut down their spending on all the wrong things.

In my professional opinion, below is a list of what they are doing wrongly.

The WRONG way:

1. Feed cheaper quality pet food simply because it costs less per kg.
2. Neglect your pet because you have to work harder to sustain your job and income.
3. Avoid smaller problems that occur to your pet (ignorance is bliss)...until something really serious happens.
4. Ask friends and search the internet for answers when your pet gets sick and hope that whatever suggestions that you find will eventually work.
5. And finally when your pet is very ill, end up spending hundreds on emergency veterinary care and therapy.

A recent example is of a dog that had a mild case of acute moist dermatitis or what is more commonly known to most pet owners as a "hot spot." After reading up a little on the particular problem from the internet, its owners got advice from a neighbour to try applying an antimicrobial ointment called Polysporin, which contains polymyxin B sulfate and bacitracin zinc. They also self-prescribed a regular dosage of ibuprofen to treat the inflammation and the pain. Very soon, the hot spot spread to over a third of its body and the ibuprofen caused serious diarrhoea and vomiting with blood.

The outcome? They rushed the poor animal to the vet and their veterinary bill ran into the hundreds.

The RIGHT way:

1. Feed your pet a premium quality food, but lower some costs by making some of your pet's food at home.
2. Ensuring that you are regularly exercising your pet...and yourself!
3. Performing weekly pet health exams at home - get comfortable with examining every part of your pet, section by section, so that you are able to quickly detect and get on top of any health problems early.
4. If your pet does become ill or injured, assess if it needs veterinary care. If you are not sure, at least get veterinary consultation or a physical exam. When you do consult a vet, at least you will be aware of all your options, have all your questions answered, get to know if further diagnostic tests are needed and if there are alternative treatments. At the same time you are receiving valuable owner education from your vet. Make notes if you have to so that you remember everything your vet has told you. Do further research on certain topics if you feel you need to. All these easily justifies the minimal costs you have to pay for a veterinary consult.
5. Acquire at least basic veterinary skills so that you are able to examine, diagnose and treat common pet health problems at home. It is not as hard or complicated as you think, but make sure all information comes from reliable sources. Most vets are willing to show you how to perform a basic physical examination of your pet. Just 10 minutes spent every week could be crucial, as early detection of a potentially serious problem can really help you save lots of money spent on emergency veterinary care. As the saying goes, a stitch in time saves nine.
   

There are many ways to cut down on pet expenses, but we have to be discerning, wise and practise good judgement. There are various other aspects of our own lives we can choose to save on, such as our personal food/beverage/shopping choices, means of transportation, water/energy wastage, high-maintenance lifestyles and such. Why choose to compromise on the health of your beloved pet? As I always advise my clients before they decide on buying or adopting that cute, adorable pup or kitten, a pet is a lifetime of commitment! Above all, I personally think spending money to help your pet lead a healthy life or to save an animal's life is still money well spent.