The invaluable work done by equestrian vets in the UK is to be recognised with a new award sponsored by leading equine insurance provider Petplan Equine at the Animal Health Trust Awards in November. The ‘Petplan Equine Vet of the Year' award people's vote will reflect the huge contribution made by vets to the equine community.

Owners and riders will be able to nominate their equine vet for the award if they feel that they are deserving of the recognition that this accolade would bring. Veterinary practice personnel are also encouraged to nominate a colleague who they feel has gone beyond the call of duty.  Leaflets have been sent to practices across the UK outlining how to nominate and people can also register through the Petplan Equine website www.petplanequine.co.uk.  A short list will be drawn up from the nominations received and an independent panel will decide the winner, who will receive his or her award at the Animal Health Trust Equestrian Awards in London on November 6^th 2008.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Animal Health Trust Equestrian Awards, which recognise the outstanding achievements made by horses, riders, owners and trainers throughout the equestrian world. This milestone coincides with Petplan Equine's 20^th anniversary and, since 1994 when the Petplan Equine Charitable Trust was founded, it has raised over £5 million, almost £500,000 of which has been donated to the AHT to fund research and development.

Jo Whitaker of Petplan Equine says: "It has been a privilege to be involved with the AHT Awards over the years and we look forward to this exciting 20th anniversary year.  Petplan Equine has sponsored the Eventing Award for the past three years but this new award will recognise the commitment and hard work of people within the equine veterinary profession and the service they provide to horse owners. Horse welfare is paramount at Petplan Equine and we are committed to promoting responsible horse ownership, through our wide range of policies, our charitable contributions and our Horse Handbook. This award will give the equine community the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the vet who has made the most outstanding contribution to the care of horses."

To nominate go to www.petplanequine.co.uk. The closing date for nomination is 3^rd October 2008.

Elanco Companion Animal Health, maker of Comfortis chewable tablets for dogs, has launched a range of support materials to help educate pet owners on flea infestation and the healthcare issues associated with fleas and encourage enquiries about flea control solutions.

The Range of Comfortis materials features point of sale equipment including free-standing zig-zag display units, window hanging displays, stacking cubes, freestanding easels and leaflet holders as well as client leaflets, waiting room display kits, posters and 20% discount letterheads and postcards for mail-outs. An animation (shown below) is also now available in various formats for veterinary practices to use on their waiting room monitors or websites. The animation, which aims to educate dog owners on flea infestations and complications, covers common risk factors for flea infestations, flea facts including the lifecycle of the flea and encourages pet owners to ask for further information on oral flea control options.

Matthew Rowe, senior product manager at Elanco Companion Animal Health said: "With many pet owners seeking their flea control solutions from other sources, such as the increasingly competitive pet superstores, veterinary businesses need to provide unique preventative healthcare services to their clients to help bond them to the practice and ensure that they return again and again. The new Comfortis support materials will help raise client awareness of the benefits of veterinary prescribed flea treatments and thereby help differentiate veterinary practice flea control solutions from those available in country stores, pet shops, supermarkets and pharmacies."

For further information on Comfortis, or the range of support materials, contact your Elanco Companion Animal Health key account manager or email elancocah.uk@lilly.com.

The RCVS Academy has launched ‘Client confidentiality,’ a free course which offers guidance for situations when vets and other members of the veterinary team feel it’s necessary to disclose confidential information without a client’s consent.

Designed with the RCVS Standards and Advice team, the ‘Client confidentiality’ course explains the steps veterinary teams need to take when deciding whether or not to make a disclosure, and how to remain compliant with their professional obligations under the Code of Professional Conduct.

Senior Standards and Advice Officer, Victoria Price said: “Deciding to breach confidentiality is often a difficult decision with no right or wrong answer.

"The course should help learners to feel confident about what to consider in order to make justified and well-supported decisions.”

The course takes around one hour to complete.

academy.rcvs.org.uk

Petplan has announced that it has raised £1million for the Blue Cross in the past decade.

The funds have gone towards running a dozen rehoming centres for dogs, cats, horses and rabbits, as well as four major animal hospitals across the country.

Petplan offers four weeks free insurance to adopters of dogs, cats and rabbits from Blue Cross as well as many other animal charities across the UK. All animal charities who work with Petplan receive 10% of the premium for any full policies they generate. The company says that in 2011, it raised over £2million for animal charities this way.

Petplan says that in addition to creating additional funds for the charity, providing four weeks free pet insurance also gives charities peace of mind that if the pet should require veterinary treatment the adopter has the funds available to ensure the animal receives the care it needs. This also means that the animal is less likely to be returned to the charity because the adopter can't afford the veterinary fees or that the charity will be asked to help cover the cost of treatment.

Chief Executive of the Blue Cross, Kim Hamilton, said: "As a charity that does not receive any government or lottery funding, we rely solely on donations from the public and valuable funding from our corporate partners. Petplan understands that our primary focus is animal welfare and the income generated from working with them has enabled us to give even more pets a healthy life in a happy home."

Simon Masding, Petplan's Head of Sales and Partnerships said: "At Petplan we work with over 1,700 animal charities and therefore understand the financial struggles that charities face on a daily basis. Along with offering charities commission Petplan also run the Charity Cheque initiative. When a four weeks free pet insurance voucher is activated it automatically enters the charity into a monthly prize draw to win £500."

For more information on how your animal charity can work with Petplan please visit www.petplan.co.uk/charity or call Charityline on 0800 072 8877. 

Pedigree® has announced the launch of national Oral Care Month, which will take place during March 2010.

Recognising that canine periodontal disease affects over 80% of dogs in the UK, yet with only 2% of owners following a regular oral care regime for their dog, Oral Care Month will seek to encourage owners to visit their veterinary practice for free dental check-ups.

The company says the initiative will be supported with a wide range of marketing material for practices, including striking waiting room posters, leaflets and free Pedigree DentaStix samples. A far-reaching national press and TV advertising campaign will also take place leading up to the campaign to encourage existing and potentially new clients to seek advice from their vet.

Pedigree's oral care expert, Dr Marie-Louise Baillon says that most owners simply aren't aware that four out of five dogs over the age of three are likely to have gum disease. "We've found that around 90% of owners rate their own dog's teeth and gums as being either good or perfect. What our campaign is aiming to do is educate owners to look out for the telltale signs, such as bad breath, which many will often wrongly accept as being normal, or bleeding and inflamed gums."

Practices can sign up to Oral Care Month from 1st January at: http://www.oralcaremonth.co.uk/.

Promotional materials will be sent to registered surgeries in the New Year. All practices that sign up will be listed on the campaign's consumer website so that dog owners can easily find their nearest participating vet.

All registered Oral Care Month practices will also be entered into a free prize draw. Prizes include a dental X-ray system worth £2,500, 25 free places on next year's 'Improving Periodontal Health' autumn lecture tour and 50 periodontal probes.

International Cat Care (formerly the Feline Advisory Bureau) is once again raising the issue of cats accidentally poisoned by dog flea products containing permethrin.

The charity is undertaking a campaign to warn owners of the dangers of using dog flea products on their cats because cats are still dying unnecessarily. While the incidents outlined here occurred in the UK, previous reports have shown that this is the most common cause of poisoning of cats in many countries because products are widely and easily available.

Gary Rutland RVN DipAVN(Surgical), Head Nurse and Cat Advocate at the Cat Friendly Millennium Veterinary Practice in Essex was moved to get in contact with International Cat Care after the death of a nine-week-old kitten treated with a permethrin-containing dog spot-on bought at a local pet store. Understandably, both the owners and the practice staff were greatly distressed. The owner used it on her dog and, because it was cheap, assumed it would 'not be strong' and would be fine to use on the kitten.  A video of the kitten on the ICC website (www.icatcare.org/permethrin/cat-deaths) shows the resulting seizures.

The second incident concerned two 7-year-old cats treated accidentally after Donna, their owner, bought a dog spot-on containing permethrin from a local shop without wearing her glasses.  Someone had placed a dog treatment among the cat treatments and she picked it up.  No advice was given to Donna in the shop.  She said that the flea treatments were on the shelves, 'just like selling smarties in a children's candy store'. 

Although both products had a warning on the packaging, this was either not seen or not taken seriously enough because such products are so freely available and nobody thinks that a drop of a dog product could kill their cat.

International Cat Care is demanding that dog spot-on flea products containing permethrin should not be available without verbal advice at the point of sale. Currently these products are categorised by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) in the UK as AVM-GSL, which means that they can be bought directly off the shop shelf without the need for advice. The charity says they should be recategorised as NFA-VPS so that they can only be purchased if there is someone in the shop who is suitably qualified to speak to and advise the buyer. The shop should advise that they are only for use on dogs, and ask if there are any cats in the home which could come into contact with a recently-treated dog. The owners can then be warned to keep the dog and cat apart, or advised to use a different product. Advice must be given with some other current non-permethrin containing spot-on products sold through pet shops under the NFA-VPS authorisation and many of these products have a much safer profile if used accidentally on cats, than those containing permethrin.

Dr Andy Sparkes, Veterinary Director for International Cat Care, said: 'Many practices see permethrin poisoning in cats several times a year but do not contact the VMD because the product is not a POM or they feel that the Directorate already knows about the problem. We feel strongly that the problem is greatly under-reported. Nothing will be done unless the full extent of the problem is realised by the VMD, so please report each one by going on the website at https://www.vmd.defra.gov.uk/adversereactionreporting/. These cat deaths are totally preventable - you can sign our petition at www.icatcare.org/permethrin/petition to change the categorisation.'

The charity is also asking the pet trade to voluntarily class these dog spot-on products containing permethrin as NFA-VPS and to provide advice to their customers accordingly. Pets at Home is working with International Cat Care and the company will be adding a till prompt so that the product cannot be sold without customers being asked whether they have a cat and given appropriate advice.

Maeve Moorcroft, Head of Pets at Pets at Home which earlier this year launched its Flea Fight Force said: 'We take the risk of permethrin poisoning in cats very seriously. We are introducing prompts at our tills so that customers are asked during the checkout process if they are aware of the risk to cats in the home when purchasing a permethrin based spot-on dog flea treatment, and also advised to wait at least 72 hours after treating the dog before the dog and cat can come into close contact.' 

International Cat Care is urging veterinary practices to ensure that if concentrated permethrin-containing spot-on products are prescribed and dispensed for use on dogs, adequate warnings are given, including when owners come in for repeat prescriptions. Asking if there is a cat in the house each time a product is dispensed is critical in case a cat has recently been added to the home.

Information on the veterinary treatment of permethrin poisoning cases can be found on the ICC website at www.icatcare.org/permethrin/vet-info

Cambridgeshire referral centre Dick White Referrals (DWR) has appointed European and RCVS internal medicine specialist Simon Tappin as its new clinical director. 

Simon, who has worked at DWR for 15 years, graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2002 before completing his residency in small animal medicine and intensive care at the University of Bristol. 

He gained his European diploma at Bristol before moving to DWR in October 2007, where he has since been widely published and lectures at home and abroad on infectious disease, acute medicine and interventional radiology. 

Simon is also a veterinary advisor to the Pet Blood Bank charity and was awarded fellowship of the RCVS through meritorious contribution to clinical practice in 2018. 

Simon said: “It’s a huge privilege for me to take up the position of clinical director at Dick White Referrals, having worked here and helped the practice grow over the last 15 years.

“I’m really looking forward to leading the move into our new building, which offers state-of-the-art facilities for pets, owners and the team.”

Simon said one of his ambitions as clinical director was to foster DWR’s residency and intern programmes to be “the very best place to come and learn from some of the most talented vets and nurses in the profession”. 

He added: “We have very successful and well-established rotating internship and residency programmes in many areas and this year we add emergency and critical care to that list.”

VetSurgeon.org member Dr Sarah Caney's company, Cat Professional, is conducting a survey of owner experiences of caring for cats with chronic kidney disease and is looking for practices to help recruit participants.

Recruited practices will be given a complimentary print copy of the new client education book 'Caring for a cat with chronic kidney disease' by Dr Sarah Caney and a set of flyers to give out to eligible cat owners.

Owners completing the survey will each receive a complimentary electronic copy of the same book.

The book is aimed at owners and aims to support veterinary recommendations regarding management of this common condition.

To find out more about this survey please visit http://www.catprofessional.com/ or contact Dr Sarah Caney on 07711 390219.

MSD Animal Health has added to its library of online CPD resources to help farm vets communicate with clients remotely and provide technical training content when working from home. 

The training material includes a range of new downloadable marketing resources for vets and SQPs to help maintain communications with their farmer customer base while face-to-face contact opportunities are restricted. They include a newsletter and social media and farmer engagement tools for various dairy, beef and sheep disease management issues.

Vets can also access new BRD management content highlighting the benefit of immunity-led disease prevention and ultrasound scanning of calf lungs. You can also view a range of practical ‘how to’ videos, as well as five different webinar recordings explaining ways to collaborate more effectively with farmers over youngstock rearing issues. The content is based on implementing MSD Animal Health’s versatile calf health checklist engagement tool, which facilitates an audit-based approach to assessing and improving current on-farm management practices.

MSD says it has another two webinars in the pipeline, which will be released in the weeks ahead: ‘Immunology’ with Professor James Roth and ‘Salmonella’ with Katrina Henderson from SAC.

To access all the training content, visit: https://www.msd-animal-health-hub.co.uk

Francesca Beorby, Head Veterinary Nurse at Putlands Veterinary Centre, has performed a clinical audit which has revealed that neutering patients premedicated with medetomidine and methadone were significantly less likely to become hypotensive than when ACP and methadone were used.

Francesca's initiative was recognised with a RCVS Knowledge ‘Highly Commended’ status at its 2024 awards.

The idea for the audit came about after Francesca noticed a trend for patients to become hypotensive during anaesthesia for routine feline neutering and need additional treatment.

CVS says clinical evidence suggests a minimum value of 60mmHg for perfusion of vital organs such as the brain, heart and kidneys. 

So a clinical audit was undertaken to look at perioperative blood pressure in both cats and dogs having routine neutering procedures.

The target was for patients to maintain a mean arterial blood pressure of 60mmHg during their anaesthetic.

The animals chosen for auditing were to be classed ASA 1 and under 5 years old.

They received a pre-operative health check including a blood pressure reading to ensure they were normotensive.

A first audit looked at a standard premedication protocol of ACP at a dose rate of 0.02mg/kg combined with methadone at a dose rate of 0.3mg/kg.

A second audit initiated a change to the pre-medication drugs, using 0.005mg/kg medetomidine combined with the same dose of methadone.

Both received anaesthesia induction with Propoflo at a dose rate of 6mg/kg for cats and 4mg/kg for dogs.

All patients under anaesthetic were maintained using isoflurane and kept at a surgical plane of anaesthesia appropriate for that patient.

The patients were monitored throughout their surgical procedure using an oscilliometric monitoring machine - for systolic, diastolic and mean arterial blood pressure – and measurements recorded on an anaesthetic chart.

The collected data revealed that in the first audit, where patients received ACP and methadone, 42% (50% of cats and 38% of dogs) had a mean arterial blood pressure lower than 60mmHg after the first five blood pressure readings post induction.

In the second audit, with medetomidine combined with methadone, only 11% of patients (0% of cats and 15% of dogs) with a mean arterial blood pressure lower than 60mmHg.

In addition to the reduction in hypotensive patients during anaesthesia when the medetomidine/methadone combo was used, Francesca says the audit suggests a link to hypotension with ACP used as a premedication in anaesthetised patients.

Francesca said: “My passion in veterinary nursing is anaesthesia. And there is always room for improvement and striving to achieve gold standard care.

“These results clearly show that a change from our current premedication protocol of ACP and Methodone to Medetomidine and Methadone decreased the number of patients having hypotension during anaesthesia. The change means fewer patients were at risk of developing the side effects associated with hypoperfusion of the vital organs.

“Our quality improvement initiative has made a really positive impact in practice for both patient care and clinical team.”

CEVA Animal Health has extended its behavioural range of products with the launch of Senilife^®, a nutritional supplement which is specifically formulated to help manage signs of brain ageing in dogs and cats.

Senilife^® contains a combination of three essential brain nutrients - phosphatidylserine, vitamin B6 and vitamin E - which the company says help maintain membrane fluidity and normalise neurotransmission.  In addition, two natural but potent anti-oxidants - gingko biloba and resveratrol - support brain metabolism and help to neutralise free radicals and reduce amyloid deposits.

According to CEVA, common signs of brain ageing in dogs and cats include playing or interacting less, barking or howling at night, loss of house-training/litter box training, apathy or increased tiredness and disorientation. A study has shown that up to 75% of dogs over seven years of age and 35% of cats 11 years and over suffer from at least one geriatric behavioural problem¹.

In a recent clinical study, 86% of owners were satisfied with the results achieved after one month of using Senilife^®, with 73% of dog owners and 67% of cat owners noticing fewer signs of brain ageing within the first seven days².

Juliet Penaliggon, small animal marketing manager at CEVA Animal Health, says: "Many typical signs of brain ageing in dogs can be controlled by nutritional management.  Senilife^® is a fast-acting, nutritional supplement that contains proven nutrients and neuroprotectives to help manage these signs."Senilife^® capsules are easy to administer either directly into the mouth of the pet or emptied onto the pet's food."

For further information, please contact your CEVA Animal Health representative or call 01494 781510.

References
1 Behaviour problems in geriatric pets.  Lansberg G and Araujo J.  Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract. 35 (2005) 675-698.
2 Isaka N, Baysse B, Lopez A, Ovaert P and Penaliggon J.  CABSTG Spring Meeting April (2009).

Janssen Animal Health has highlighted that enforcement of the Veterinary Medicines legislation will require thousands of poultry owners to change the way they worm in the future.

The company says that in the past many poultry keepers with small to medium sized flocks have used Flubenvet^® 2.5% Medicated Premixture 240 gram pack. However, going forwards, it will no longer be possible to do so unless individuals (or companies) are approved and registered to mix medicines into feed. The Flubenvet^® 1% 60 gram pack for domestic poultry launched in 2008 remains widely available and can still be used without having to register. Each 60 gram pack is suitable to treat around 20 chickens.

Registered retailers are also only able to sell medicated premixtures for mixing into more than 30kg of feed to customers who are specifically registered with the VMD to mix these into animal foods.

Janssen Animal Health vet Nigel Underwood said: "We are advising all poultry keepers of this legislation. We must comply with the law and are simply not able to supply unregistered wholesalers, merchants, pharmacies of vet practices with medicated premixtures unless they are approved.. The new 60 gram domestic poultry pack of Flubenvet^® 1% was developed specifically for the smaller poultry owner and is exempt from the legislation. It is available from vets, pharmacists and suitably qualified animal health advisers and poultry owners do not have to be registered to use it."