Zoonotic hookworms and roundworms affecting dogs and cats in Europe

Roundworms reside within the lumen of the small intestine, feeding on nutrients within it. The clinical picture in infected animals depend on different factors related to the host (eg age) or to the...

Clinical features of hepatozoonosis in dogs and cats

Hepatozoonosis caused by H. canis is often subclinical or characterized by non-specific clinical signs, i.e. fever, lymphadenopathy, weight loss, anorexia, lethargy and haematobiochemical alterations,...

Soil contamination with Toxocara spp. eggs in public parks in the Midlands

The present study found evidence of soil contamination with Toxocara spp. eggs in the East Midlands region. Results indicated that 74% of the parks were contaminated, with soil prevalence levels of...

Use of broad-spectrum parasiticides in canine and feline parasitology

Intestinal helminthes of companion animals are of primary importance in daily clinical practice (Figure 1). The roundworms (ascarids), Toxocara canis and Toxocara cati (Figure 2), infecting dogs and...

Pheromones and 25 years of pheromonotherapy: what are they and how do they work?

Pheromones are biologically active semiochemicals (chemical signals from one organism to another capable of bringing about a change in the recipient organism); they are secreted from the body of one...

Socialisation: is it the ‘be all and end all’ of creating resilience in companion animals?

McMillan (2016) suggested that social animals that form strong relationships and are integrated most strongly into group living are most likely to survive, reproduce, and raise offspring to...

Practical behavioural first aid for feline patients

Having evolved as a territorial species that predated on rodents, but that was also predated on by larger carnivores (Bradshaw et al, 2012), the cat is effectively, constantly, asking itself ‘Am I...

Tea tree oil exposure in cats and dogs

Tea tree oil, also known as melaleuca oil, is an essential oil obtained by steam distillation from the leaves and terminal branches of the Australian tea tree, Melaleuca alternifolia (Carson et al,...

Helping kittens to become confident cats—why they and their owners need the support of the veterinary team. Part 2: environmental effects and support

There are a number of pre- and post-natal environmental effects that can affect the kitten's capacity to develop emotional resilience to both the social and physical aspects of a domestic environment.

Helping kittens to become confident cats – why they and their owners need the support of the veterinary team. Part 1: genetic barriers

The earliest evidence of our domestic cat's original ancestor comes from 11 million years ago (Bradshaw et al, 2012) and from this evolved a range of species including the ‘wild cat’. Of these it is...

Microchipping in cats

Microchipping involves inserting a tiny implant under the cat's skin (usually the scruff of the neck). This electronically encodes a unique number that is linked to a central database containing the...

Feline stress in a nutshell — why does it occur, how can it be recognised, and what can be done to alleviate it?

Even the owners of highly sociable indoor cats will describe the frequent tendency of their cat to actively desire periods of solitary independence. This level of freedom to remove themselves from the...

Approach to the companion animal cancer patient: current therapies

Veterinary oncology is the sub-speciality of veterinary medicine that deals with cancer diagnosis and treatment in animals. The methods and availability of treatment are improving almost daily with...

Approach to the companion animal cancer patient part 1: an overview

Recent research shows that the lifetime risk of cancer is now 1 in every 2 people born since the early 1960s (Ahmad et al, 2015; Cancer Research UK, 2016). Cancer is estimated to affect up to 1 in...