Vitamin B12, also known as cobalamin, is an essential vitamin absorbed in the guts of mammals. Dogs and cats with gastrointestinal disease such as inflammatory bowel disease or gastrointestinal lymphoma, can have low levels of B12 because their guts are not absorbing the nutrients as they should. It's an important marker for normal gut health. If your veterinarian suspects GI disease they may check the level of Vitamin B12 in your pets blood. If the levels are low your vet will recommend supplementing to help your pet feel better.
Check out the new page about Vitamin B12 and learn more about what it is, why it's important, and how to increase the Vitamin B12 levels in your pet.
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DCM is Dilated Cardiomyopathy. It is a disease that causes the heart muscle to gradually get weaker and weaker. The inability of the heart to squeeze blood out well causes problems as the disease progresses.
How does this happen?
True DCM seems to be coded in the genetics of our beloved pets. The breeds that are diagnosed most commonly with DCM are large breeds including, Great Danes, Newfoundlands, and Irish wolfhounds. The top two however, are Boxers and Dobermans.
DCM shows itself in two phasesThere is a lot of hype right now about grain free foods and heart disease in pets. We reached out to Ann, our nutrition and internal medicine small animal VTS author, for her prospective and she gave us the low down. In July 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a bulletin regarding a potential connection between diet and cases of canine Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM). Veterinary cardiologists had alerted the FDA of an increase in cases of DCM in breeds not typically genetically prone to this condition (1, 2). Dilated cardiomyopathy has been genetically linked to a number of breeds of dogs including Great Danes, Boxers, Newfoundland’s, Irish Wolfhounds, St. Bernard’s, and Doberman pinschers. Cardiologists were seeing an increase in non-typically breeds including mix-breed dogs and smaller dogs. (1)
Veterinary cardiologists were recently surveyed about cases of possible diet-associated DCM in dogs examined in the past 2 years. Information was provided for over 240 dogs. For dogs in which the breed was specified:
We're launching a new page on the website: Decoding a Pet Food Label We're super excited to have Ann teach us how to decode a pet food label. These are not as straight forward as you may believe. Definitely a must read for those looking for just the right dog or cat food. Ann Wortinger is an amazing veterinary technician with her VTS not only in small animal internal medicine, but also in emergency and critical care AND nutrition! Talk about a well rounded tech. We're honored to have her contribute to the website. Let us know what you think!
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