Vet Blog
06/23/09
 I’d like to thank Denise, of San Francisco, for drawing my attention to a clever program in Merced County, California. The program highlights my all-time favorite blogging theme: the benefits that humans derive from dogs and cats.
Last October this blog covered a program in which veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder trained service dogs. The veterans enjoyed demonstrable improvement and the dogs went on to help other disabled individuals.
Merced County’s program is similar. In the program, at-risk high school students train assistance dogs. According to the county’s website, the students have reaped numerous benefits.
While training service dogs for the disabled, at-risk youth learn about child abuse, animal abuse, and domestic violence, and also explore empathy, citizenship, responsibility, and good choices.
The dogs are accepting and non-judgmental while offering love and motivating the students.
Watching the dogs’ rapid, measurable progress teaches the teens that positive reinforcement, empathy, and an encouraging, upbeat attitude are effective methods of interacting with others.
The children that participated have improved self esteem, behavior at home, school performance, and many are no longer involved in the child welfare system.
Through pre-testing and midway-point testing, HSA is able to show the teens knowledge of dog behavior, domestic violence, and child / animal abuse.
Interviews with the teens reveal diminishing gang involvement, self-injury, and substance abuse.
Interviews with parents show support for the positive impact on the teens, including improved home relationships, grades, and a decrease in trouble at school and negative peer relationships.
The community receives an increase of well-trained dogs to provide assistance to those in need.
As for the program’s downsides . . . I can’t think of any.
According to the County Website, the program was the idea of a social worker who noticed the positive effects of an in-training service dog on children. My hat goes off to that individual, and to the County of Merced.
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06/14/09
My dog has heartworm. Her old vet recommended HeartGuard but for only six months. We used it but she still got heartworm. Now she has to be caged for a very long time.
I believe she is getting very depressed because of the changes in her life. I brush her as always, but can’t let her run or chase balls, as she is used to. Her new vet also put her on a diet to lose about 7 lbs. A time of stress like she is going through now is never a good time to lose weight, I believe, so she can lose those pounds after she gets through the heartworm treatment. At least that is what I think.
I am deeply concerned about the depression I see though. What can I do? Is there some kind of med I can give her to get her through all this? Or something I can do to make her feel better?
Why do vets never concern themselves with the mental problems that can accompany physical ones? Surely how a dog feels must play a part in getting well just as it does in humans. Could you please suggest something I can do?
Thanks.
Vi, loving mom of Zoey, age three.
Wheat Ridge, Colorado
In humans is well documented that physical health and mental health are closely connected. Depressed people are more likely to suffer from a host of illnesses. Illness often makes people depressed. And sick people who have strong social networks or family support get well faster.
Pets, incidentally, provide companionship and support that have been shown by numerous studies to benefit human health, prevent illness, and help sick people grow healthy.
Clinical depression has not yet been defined in dogs. And I am not aware of evidence-based studies that show happiness and mental health therapies are beneficial for dogs with heartworm.
But, as much as I support the concept of evidence-based medicine, I’m going to break away from it on this one. I think it’s clear that happy pets will heal faster than depressed ones.
Along those lines, I encourage families to visit pets that are hospitalized for treatment when I’m working. Being among loved ones motivates individuals to get well.
In Zoey’s case, I do not recommend antidepressants. Instead, focus on developing new, fun routines that won’t interfere with Zoey’s recovery from heartworm. She can’t play ball, but she can still snuggle, sit on the sofa with you while you watch TV, and sit at your feet while you read a book. You can keep her on a leash in the house if necessary. You can hold her on your lap if she’s small enough.
Be creative. One client of mine purchased a child’s bicycle trailer for her dog when canine arthritis made walks in the park impossible. The dog was thrilled to ride along as her owner pedaled her through Golden Gate Park. Just because your dog can’t exercise doesn’t mean she can’t get out and enjoy fresh air and sunshine.
I agree that weight loss needn’t be a priority at this time. However, remember that decreased activity can lead to weight gain. Excess weight stresses the heart. At the very least, try to make sure that Zoey doesn’t gain weight.
As for six month heartworm prevention . . . it is not recommended by the experts. The American Heartworm Society and Companion Animal Parasite Council recommend continuous heartworm prophylaxis in all dogs and cats. So do I.
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05/30/09
 In case you have any doubts that pets can be good for humans, consider the following blurb from the June 5, 2009 issue of The Week.
Scott Seymore was debating whether to euthanize his 9-year-old bulldog, Brittney, who was dying of stomach cancer. Instead the Grand Rapids, Mich., man decided to give Brittney steroids to ease her pain in her last few weeks of life. Seymour’s decision paid off last week when his house caught fire and a barking Brittney woke him up. Both master and pet escaped safely. “She never, ever barks when I’m sleeping,” said Seymour. “She was demanding that I get up. And it saved my life.”
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04/24/09
 I have long maintained that pets are good for people. Scientific studies back this up. They help to lower our blood pressure, decrease our rates of diabetes, and help us to get more exercise. They inspire sick people to become well, and they help to prevent and treat depression.
Human medical advances historically have been the basis of veterinary medical advances. New human treatments are often adapted to animals.
But a report in Science Daily shows that sometimes it can be the other way around.
The story describes a new treatment for a serious form of canine cancer: anal sac adenocarcinoma. Anal sac adeoncarcinomas are aggressive tumors with limited treatment options. Or rather, the options used to be limited.
A new treatment has been developed. It relies on the fact that tumor cells have extra receptors for vitamin B12. In the treatment a relatively benign molecule, nitric oxide, is attached to vitamin B12. The nitric oxide is toxic to cancer cells. It has little impact on the rest of the body.
Since humans don’t have anal sac glands (and therefore we don’t suffer from anal sac adenocarcinomas), it may seem that this treatment wouldn’t be of much interest to the field of human medicine. However, our tumors often have extra vitamin B12 receptors. This means that, with some gentle manipulation, the therapy may some day be useful to us as well.
It’s a win-win situation, to be sure.
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03/12/09
 I firmly believe that pets are good for people. Their beneficial effects on our mental health are obvious to anyone who has ever patted a dog on the head or sat with a cat on his lap. Pets also benefit our physical health. They lower blood pressure, inspire sick children to fight to get well, and reduce the likelihood of stroke and heart attack. They can detect diabetic seizures before they happen. Pets assist people with disabilities ranging from blindness to Parkinson’s disease to post-traumatic stress disorder.
A recent article in The Economist describes yet another way that dogs may soon help people. Certain breeds may serve as research models for hereditary diseases.
A DOG may be man’s best friend. But man is not always a dog’s. Over the centuries selective breeding has pulled at the canine body shape to produce what is often a grotesque distortion of the underlying wolf. Indeed, some of these distortions are, when found in people, regarded as pathologies.
Dog breeding does, though, offer a chance to those who would like to understand how body shape is controlled. The ancestry of pedigree pooches is well recorded, their generation time is short and their litter size reasonably large, so there is plenty of material to work with. Moreover, breeds are, by definition, inbred, and this simplifies genetic analysis. Those such as Elaine Ostrander, of America’s National Human Genome Research Institute, who wish to identify the genetic basis of the features of particular pedigrees thus have an ideal experimental animal.
Dr Ostrander has already used dogs to track down the genes behind certain cancers that the species shares with people, and to work out the dog family tree. At the [American Association for the Advancement of Science] she described her search for the genes controlling three of the most important features of a breed: its size, its hair and the length of its legs.
What is the relevance of looking at dogs’ leg length? It turns out that chrondrodysplasia, which is what causes Dachshunds and Corgis to have short legs, may be caused by the same set of genes that triggers what is “known vulgarly as dwarfism” in humans.
The upshots of this work are twofold. One is to show that a lot of variety can be caused by only a little genetic variation . . . [t]he second upshot is that dogs may cast light on the condition of human chondrodysplasics and thus prove, once again, what good friends they are to man.
I should add that I, like many men in their thirties, also can think of at least one very solid upshot to studying the growth of hair in dogs (or any species)!
Click on the humanhealth tag for more posts on the health benefits that humans derive from pets.
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11/02/08
 I’d like to thank Denise, of San Francisco, for alerting me to an article that appeared in the October 28, 2008 issue of USA Today. Here is an excerpt:
All pet owners and most in the medical community now acknowledge the healing power of animals. Some doctors even write prescriptions giving hospitalized patients access to the pets they left at home. At the 1,000-bed Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., patients can request orders for a recuperative in-room visit with their pet.
But there are pockets of disagreement among doctors when it comes to allowing seriously ill or functionally fragile people to return to a home occupied by a pet buddy. Some advise pets be exiled, fearing that someone in a full-leg cast, for example, might trip over a rambunctious cat and undo everything; or someone with open wounds or whose immune system is weak from chemotherapy or diseases like HIV/AIDS could pick up an infection from the animal.
I understand that allowing gravely ill people to visit with pets carries risks. But time spent with pets may also be beneficial. Pets create a sense of well-being. They reduce stress (which helps the immune system). They give people something to live for, and they motivate people to get well.
I have discussed the human health benefits of pets on many occasions. Check out the humanhealth tag on this blog for a sampling. Here is my take: pets are good for people.
The author of the article in USA Today seems to agree. Here is another excerpt:
Indeed, a growing body of anecdotal data suggests time with a pet may be “as powerful in the person’s recovery as the medical treatment,” says the American Humane Association’s Phil Arkow.
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10/02/08
 I’d like to thank “d.d.”, of San Francisco, for sending in an excellent article from the SF Chronicle’s website.
The article touches on my all-time favorite subject: the physical and emotional health benefits that people derive from animals. Many of these benefits are well documented. People who have dogs benefit from increased exercise. Petting cats lowers blood pressure. Therapy dogs in children’s hospitals make patients want to get well. They also make the work environment more pleasant for nurses. Pets may be able to detect abnormal blood sugar levels in humans with diabetes. The list goes on and on.
Now we can add two new documented ways that animals help people. Dogs may help relieve the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans. They also serve as assistance animals for veterans who have gone through limb amputations.
Here is an excerpt from the article.
A couple of months ago, [Abelardo Rosas] barely spoke to anyone. He was sullen and surly and not responding to treatment at the PTSD clinic at the Veterans Affairs health center in Menlo Park.
Then he met Vegas, a sweet, good-natured golden retriever with a shiny coat and sad eyes.
Rosas had volunteered to participate in a pilot program – veterans at the clinic would train canines to become assistance dogs to aid disabled veterans, those who had lost limbs or are confined to wheelchairs.
The story proceeds to describe how the companionship of Vegas helped Rosas re-gain a sense of balance in life. He also helped the young veteran to feel relevant and helpful again.
[Rick Yount, director of the program] said handling and training dogs is valuable in the treatment of PTSD because the animals help the veterans connect with their emotions. The dogs counteract feelings of isolation. They have to take the dogs out into the community, he said, and other people inevitably want to pet the dogs and talk to the person handling them.
“The dog also reinforces the need to assist someone else,” he said. “This is important for a lot of veterans because most of them joined the military to help people.”
In my opinion it is an absolutely ingenious program. My hat goes off to everyone involved in it!
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09/06/08
Thanks to John for pointing out an article that lists some of the human health benefits of having a pet. I’ve already covered a few of these topics, but regular readers of this blog know that I simply can’t resist this subject.
According to the CDC, pets can decrease blood pressure, triglycerides, cholesterol and feelings of loneliness. It turns out that pets can increase certain life elements as well: exercise and exposure to social activities and interactions.
The evidence that pets are good for people is overwhelming, and still building. I’m looking forward to reporting new discoveries as they occur.
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08/14/08
 The evidence keeps rolling in. Pets are good for people.
I was quite excited when Discovery CME, an organization that offers online continuing education for physicians, confused me for an MD and sent me their schedule. Among their offerings is a program that seemed right up my alley. The program is entitled “Pets and People: The Power of the Health Connection.” You can watch it online if you have a high speed connection.
The program is intended to be educational material for human physicians. I found this surprising (and, on some levels, disturbing) because the narration and theme of the program make it seem much more like an after-school special than a serious scientific work.
However, it makes solid points.
Animal companionship leads to decreased stress in humans. This can help to prevent heart disease.
Dogs and cats can provide exceptional support for humans with disabilities ranging from blindness to quadriplegia to autism and beyond.
Dog walking promotes weight loss, muscle strength, and cardiovascular health.
Therapy dogs help with the emotional and physical recovery of patients in hospitals, assisted care facilities, and other institutions.
Pets provide valuable (and often critical) emotional support for humans with serious diseases such as cancer.
The above list does not even come close to being complete. If you want to read more about the ways in which having a pet benefits human health, check out the humanhealth tag on this blog. As well, you can find more information The Power of Paws, a website dedicated to spreading the word.
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07/31/08
 It is my ongoing passion to document the health benefits that people derive from their pets. In a recent post, I surmised that in the future it will be shown that pets help to prevent cognitive decline (memory loss and dementia) in the people they live with. The post was based upon two studies that showed social networks help to prevent cognitive decline. My thesis was that pets are part of social networks. Therefore, pets help to prevent memory impairment and dementia.
As I was browsing the internet the other day, I came upon another article. From the article:
The good news is that moderate exercise over most of your life can not only assist in the prevention of onset cognitive deterioration, but may actually be able to reverse existing damage, at least to a certain extent.
I was immediately reminded of one of my other previous posts: people with dogs get more exercise than people who don’t have dogs.
Having a dog leads to more exercise. More exercise leads to improved cognitive function. Connect the dots.
All that remains is for a study to show a direct link between pet ownership and improved cognitive function (rather than the indirect links that I keep making). I believe it is only a matter of time.
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I’d like to thank Denise, of San Francisco, for drawing my attention to a clever program in Merced County, California. The program highlights my all-time favorite blogging theme: the benefits that humans derive from dogs and cats.
You have questions. 