People think of fleas as annoying parasites but rarely do we think of them as carrying life threatening diseases.  The plague (Yersinia pestis) is spread by fleas and it can be fatal and in centuries gone by has been fatal to large numbers of people around the world.

The disease that is spread by fleas we see frequently here in cats is called feline infectious anemia.  The name of the infectious agent is Hemobartonella felis or Mycoplasma haemofelis.  It is not contagious to people but it can be fatal to cats.  The parasite attaches to the red blood cell causing the body to think that the red blood cell is a foreign particle.  The spleen in the body then “cleanses” the blood of these invading particles.  This causes an immune mediated anemia.  Jaundice (turning yellow) can occur and the anemia can be so serious as to require a blood transfusion for the cat to survive.

Treatment is successful in most cases if it is caught in time. The antibiotics doxycycline and enrofloxacin both rid the body of this blood parasite and prednisolone is given to stop the immune response of the body killing its own red blood cells. Of course, you have to get rid of the fleas as well by treating the cat and the environment.

I have seen this disease in the same cat a number of times (everytime it gets infested with fleas) and it never gets better without treatment.  So a cat that survives a bout of this disease should always be kept on flea control.  Cats that are feline leukemia positive seem to have a harder time clearing themselves of the parasite.  And there are two types of the parasite (the large form and the small form) and depending on your geographic location, one may be more virulent than the other.

So I know that there are worse things in the world that can happen to your cat but don’t think that fleas can’t kill your cat.  It really can be a serious problem. 

My staff recently showed me that we have had 3 bad Google reviews about our hospital.  I understand that bad reveiws are inevitable even if we do our best.  If an owner's pet is dying of cancer we can't change that but we can try to ease the pet's pain while still alive or ease the patient's passing.  It is very difficult for some people to handle these life and death issues and they may not understand what we are saying or do not like what we are trying to tell them.  These people will leave us and they will leave us unhappy but there is nothing we can do about it. 

What bothers me about the reviews is that they say we essentially enjoy euthanasias.  After reading these reviews I had to question myself and asked one of our long time receptionists if she felt we were too easy to euthanise animals.  She immediately said no and that the reason she was proud to say she worked for us was that all the doctors always acted on the behalf of the patient and always did what was right for the patient and owner.  

What she said got me thinking.  The goal of people that work for veterinarians is to work for a veterinarian that treats it's patients with caring and respect and does everything they can to ensure their patients welfare.  These people will not stay long at a facility that does not care about it's patients and euthanizes animals for no good reason.  Although people leave a job for many reasons, most of our staff has been with us for more than five years and some for as many as 10 years.  If we are too quck to euthanize and are not respectful to our patients, the staff would be the first to know and it would be hard for us to keep good people.

I did place a response to the Google reviews and if you want to read what has been said and my reply just do a Google search for Kindness Animal Hospital, Port St. Lucie and look for reviews of our hospital (I tried to put a link in here but it didn't work).

To begin e-mailing reminders to those clients that would prefer that form of communication we will need to start to collect your e-mail addresses.  So the next time you are in, you may be asked to give us your e-mail address.  The e-mail addresses will help not only with reminders but also it will allow us to effectively notify you in case of some sort of recall or problem with pet products such has food recalls of last year.  The e-mails will only be used to communicate with you from Kindness Animal Hospital and will not be given or sold to any third party.

To do this efficiently, we would like you to inform us that you would like to switch from the U.S. Postal service to electronic mail.  I know that we have a lot of older clients that don’t feel comfortable with computers.  Rest assured that we will still be using paper reminders but for those individuals that would prefer e-mail, we would like to accommodate them as well.

And a final note on the subject of communication.  We understand that our client's time and money is a priority so when one of our patients is undergoing treatment (for anything from allergies to life threatning illnesses), we frequently perform follow up phone calls.  We can often prevent a future office visit by tweaking the treatment over the phone should the treatment not help as much as we think it should.  However, I find that we don’t always get responses even when multiple messages are left.  Our follow up calls are a very important part of the treatment process and we would really appreciate a response when we leave a message.  If you would like us to call you on a particular number then please give us that phone number.  If you would prefer an e-mail instead of a phone call, please let us know that as well.  The important thing is the health of your pet…how we get there doesn’t matter, as long as we get there.

A long time ago when I was a new vet just staring to practice in Louisiana I had three roommates come in with their very old, arthritic German Shepherd type dog.  In fact she had to be carried in and placed on the exam table because she couldn’t walk well anymore at all.

It was a hard decision for them and we took some time talking about the options (at that time, there were none except euthanasia or pain).  They decided to euthanize her and stayed in the room while I gave the injection. I listened to make sure the medicine had taken effect and told them that she had passed.  I said for them to stay as long as they needed and left the room.  A few minutes later, one of the roommates came out of the room saying that she really wasn’t dead and to come back in.  I felt for a pulse, listened for a heartbeat…the pupils were fixed and dilated.  I asked them what had happened that they thought she was still alive.  They all looked at each other and finally one of them spoke.

“We really weren’t sure that we had made the right decision.” He said.  “We asked her, did we really do the right thing for her, and well, she wagged her tail.”  What they described was not a muscle twitch.  It was a full wagging of the tail for three or four wags then she was still again.

I could not explain it then and after twenty years, I still cannot explain it. 

Euthanasia is the hardest, most personal decision anyone will ever have to make.  People always want their pet to die at home, in their sleep.  I can tell you that it almost never happens like that.  There is usually vomiting, trouble breathing, seizures, not eating for a week or two, pain…sometimes all of the above.  Anyone who has ever had to watch a human loved one die knows that it is not much better for us.  Although the doctors frequently give us a morphine drip to fog us out while we’re dying…is that really a “better” way?

Aside from the religious issues concerning euthanasia, it is a personal decision done to end suffering.  We do not take euthanasia lightly. We do not do convenience euthanasias.  There really needs to be a reason.  And the reasons are many…kidney failure, uncontrollable seizure disorders, cancer, severe arthritis, dementia.  It is done to end pain and suffering.

There are times when we euthanize animals for preventable diseases.  We all hate those euthanasias because we know that it didn’t have to end that way.  Sometimes we try to council the owners about their choices and explain to them how to prevent this in the future.  We have annoyed people doing this and we have people tell us that we are cruel and insensitive by telling them how such a death could have been prevented. Ending a dog’s life because its teeth are rotting out or because it has heartworms is not something that had to happen.  And it is on our conscience that these deaths weigh heavily like the chains hanging around Marley in “A Christmas Carol”.