Giving chocolate to your loved ones on Valentine’s Day is a tradition that got its start in 1861, when the first heart shaped boxes were made by Cadbury. Since then, chocolate continues to be a popular choice for Valentine’s Day gifts.
Although a tasty treat for people, chocolate is a dangerous choice for our furry family members. More often than not it’s our dogs that get into things they aren’t supposed to, but cats can be guilty parties as well. For animals, the signs of chocolate toxicity are dose dependent and will vary by the type of chocolate our pet consumes. (More on that later!) Here are 14 reasons to keep the chocolate out of their reach this Valentine’s day (and the other 364 days in the year).
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We just completed the Immune Mediated Neutropenia page! No more construction pug there!! Immune Mediated Neutropenia, or IMN, is a rare condition where the body's immune system starts attacking the white blood cells normally used to fight off infections. Check out the page here to learn more. We're excited to keep building the pages on our site to provide more information for you. Enjoy!
We're celebrating Responsible Pet Owners Month with each and every one of you. We know being a pet parent means having a sense of responsibility for your pet that not everyone feels the same about. We mean it. Thank you for being the best owner to your fur babies. It's a tough job sometimes, but one we cherish each and every day. Here's What It TakesRemember when we learned in the pancreas introduction post that the pancreas synthesizes and secretes enzymes to digest the food your pet eats? These enzymes include lipase and amylase. They are sent through the pancreatic ducts (then into the common bile duct) into the duodenum where they work on the food that has been ingested. But what happens if these digestive enzymes cannot make their normal journey? Occasionally, the pancreas becomes inflamed and swollen. As the pancreas becomes increasingly inflamed, the ducts that connect the pancreas and duodenum become inflamed as well. As this inflammation progresses, the ducts get squeezed down and unable to carry enzymes from the pancreas to the duodenum.
The Pet Health Journal: A 6 Month Journal For Medications, Exams, & Healthy Living was officially published this week! We're so excited to share this work book with you and hope you get a chance to see it in person. If you live near Ashley or Yvonne, you've probably seen the proof copies because we've been carrying them around everywhere with us the last few weeks!!! If you'd like a journal of your very own, visit Amazon and grab a copy today! We'll be setting up with additional online retailers in the next week or so, so keep a look out for the Pet Health Journal at your favorite retailer. We are also making the Pet Health Journal available for wholesale to veterinary clinics and hospitals, so if you think your veterinarian might want to carry it have them send us an email at [email protected] and we'll get them set up. Thank you!We want to give a big thank you to everyone who helped get the Pet Health Journal finished. We hope this journal helps pets and their families live a happier, healthier life together. Sincerely,What is the Pancreas?The pancreas is a small organ that sits just below the stomach, tucked into a bend in the small intestine. It is an accessory organ of the gastrointestinal system and has both endocrine and exocrine properties.
Exocrine means the body uses series of ducts to excrete things outside of the body, like sweat. Endocrine means the body secretes hormones directly into the blood stream, like insulin. Heartworm disease is what is called a vector borne disease. What this means is that a vector, in this case a mosquito, transmits or gives the disease to the animal through a blood meal. When the mosquito is feeding on your dog or cats’ blood, they are simultaneously injecting an immature form of heartworm! It is caused by the nematode (small worm) parasite, Dirofilaria immitus. We abbreviate their name as D. immitus. When these immature heartworms, or larvae enter the body they start to grow and mature. Depending on whether they enter a dog or cat, as to when the problems will start to occur. Dogs are what is called the ‘definitive or natural’ host for heartworms, cats on the other hand are known as ‘aberrant’ hosts. Because of this, the disease behaves very differently in each of these host species. Dogs and Heartworm DiseaseLet’s first look at heartworm disease in dogs, the natural host. All canid species can become infected with heartworm disease, that means not only the neighborhood dogs, but the foxes, coyotes and wolves (yikes!). If you have mosquitos in your yard, you have heartworm disease!
We're so excited to start 2019 with big plans for the year. Thank you for joining us since we launched in August. We hope the information we're providing is helping you and your family live happier, healthier lives. What we accomplished in 20182018 was a learning year for IMFPP. We launched the website in August and since then have been working hard at creating weekly blog posts as well as creating the disease pages. Our weekly blog post has been a place of pride for us. We're working hard to ensure it is released every Thursday morning and has the highest quality information. We've had some amazing contributing authors and plan to keep bringing you the best we can. Currently the pages that have the most information are the urinary, endocrine, liver, hematology, and immunology. These pages are not 100% complete, but most of the basics are there. As we continue to grow, these pages will continue to be fleshed out. We're excited to have grown our newsletter list to over 100 subscribers! Everyone on our list got a copy of our Weekly Treatment Tracker and we've heard great feedback on it. Thank you so much to everyone that's joined us so far. If you'd like to join here's the link: Subscribe Now! In the background we've been working on the nitty-gritty details to set up our business for the growth we have planned in the future. Plans for 2019How do I get my pet to take the medications!
It's one of the most common questions we get. Animal can be tricky to get medications into. Cats are especially talented in spitting them out.
We've got a couple of tricks for you to try out to help get important, possibly even life-saving, medications into your pets. Hiding medications |
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Most of the information on this site is free for you to read, watch or listen to, but Internal Medicine for Pet Parents is also a business. So please expect hyperlinks to be affiliate links in many cases, where we receive a small percentage of sales if you wish to purchase. We only recommend tools, books and services that we use, or people we know personally. Integrity and authenticity continue to be of the highest importance to us. Read the privacy policy here. We hope you find the site useful! Thanks – Yvonne and Ashley Check us out on Facebook!
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