I'm a Vet ask me anything

[Tropicana1]

Love my job - go ahead, ask me anything!

Are there any animals/creatures you really don't like

Why do you charge so much??
NHS prescription is a tenth of what I just paid for similar antibiotics for my ddog!!

Do you get cross when pet owners haven’t vaccinated annually ?

@PeanuttyButter I'm not a fan of birds, although I will obviously examine them when they come in! Spiders are a no go, thankfully never been brought one!

Do vets care when they have to issue a prescription for clients to buy their pet drugs online?
I am about to ask mine tomorrow as it's soo much cheaper.

How do I stop my 8 month old Labrador from eating my other dogs poo. It's grim!

@Beachbodynowayready your NHS prescription is heavily subsidised by the NHS, leaving you with a "nominal" fee to pay. If we were in a country where we only had a private healthcare system your charges would be fairly similar or more for human health care.

For example - a private 10 minute consultation with a GP is around £70-80 compared to say £30-40 for a vet consultation.

We are so lucky in this country to have the NHS but it does lead to a very distorted. IDE on the actual costs of healthcare

Do you think some vets take advantage of owners love for their pets by pressuring them into unecessary treatments. My mum is forever at the vets getting the cats teeth cleaned or such like. Have 2 cats that have been neutered and that’s it... maybe I’m just lucky

What are the little lumps almost every cocker spaniel gets in their old age on their bums?

It's like fatty lumps on their backs above their hips. Thought my 10 yr old boy had avoided them but can feel them starting.

@recall not annoyed no, frustrated sometimes. It is reason dependent - I'm more than happy to titre test the DHP component if that's what an owner wants (although we only vaccinate for that every 3 years anyway) but as there are no guidelines for how frequent to titre test it can be a huge unknown when immunity will drop.
There is no titre test for lepto which is why we recommend it annually, and it's a horrible disease. All the diseases we vaccinate for are awful clinically, and vaccination is an easy prevention. If people don't vaccinate because of misinformation on the internet and scaremongering it frustrates me.

Raw or processed food. What do you recommend?

What food would you recommend for a small 9 year old dog? How can I make sure she doesn't get overweight now she has been spayed? (rescue dog who had a rough life and would eat constantly if she got the chance)

@Sparklingbrook absolutely not - they won't mind. Your vet just wants your dog to be on whatever treatment they recommend! (Be prepared to pay a prescriptions writing fee though)

Your vet often can't offer drugs at the same price as the online pharmacies - at my practice the cost at which we buy certain drugs from our wholesaler is actually more expensive than online pharmacies SELL them! We are legally required to buy our drugs from certain wholesalers so we can't even buy them at the cheap pharmacy prices from the pharmacy direct!

Thanks Tropicana, I feel better about asking now.

Why do so many vets still promote diets that aren’t species appropriate, e.g dry food for cats.

Why does my dog apparently need vaccinating every single year when my child doesn't? Why do animal vaccinations not last?

@teachergirl2011 ooohhh horrible habit and difficult to break! Sometimes they do it as a "reward" seeking behaviour - if when they eat poo you shout "no no no stop" and try and get them to stop, they've got attention and therefore a "reward", like a game, and then they try to replicate this game. Try to avoid telling no, shouting, or telling off or chasing. Try and distract away with treats when they make a bee line for the poo. If they've already started eating it ignore them and try to lead them away / call them away etc, and try to get a really good "leave it" response learned with food / toys / in puppy training class that you can start to use out and about

Sometimes it's a nutritional issue, very occasionally with a medical root, and sometimes it's just a really gross habit and they like the taste :/

@Redtartanshoes god I hope not! I would certainly never recommend an unnecessary treatment, it would be deeply unethical and vets have to take an oath the same as medics to put welfare of animals under our care at the forefront. I would really like to think that your mums vet is the same as most and wouldn't recommend anything g unnecessary. Cats can need fairly frequent dentals, they can get chronic inflammatory disease and something called resorptive lesions where the tooth starts getting resorbed by the body which is really painful so that may be the cause of the need for multiple procedures. If she has any concern about whether a procedure is necessary she should always feel able to discuss it with her vet and come up with an alternative plan if that's what she wants :)

@StormcloakNord most likely lipomas - benign fatty lumps that lots of dogs get as they age. The only way to tell for certain is fine needle aspiration and looking at the cells - a lipoma is purely fat cells

@StormcloakNord sorry just re read your post and think I mis understood you - do you mean like "saddle bags" of fat over their hipbones?

Why do you claim that vaccinations give immunity towards certain diseases but then in the next sentence remind the owners they’ll need boosters?

You can’t boost immunity, there’s no such thing. You’re either immune or you’re not. You’re either lying to your customers that their pets are immune, or you’re openly putting their health at risk giving pointless “boosters” when there’s no need because they’re immune so therefore lying to gain money from them ?

@fluorescentorange personally I recommend a kibble diet (as long as it's a high protein, low carb, good quality one) over raw as there are no available peer reviewed scientific studies on the long term benefits or downfalls of a raw diet and so I don't feel like I can recommend it medically until that information is available to me. I have concerns with the nutrition being balanced, particularly with puppies and levels of phosphorus etc. From a human health (and animal health) perspective meat slaughtered for human consumption often is contaminated with campylobacter or salmonella (over 65% of chicken in UK supermarkets was found to have campylobacter on the surface of the meat) so it certainly leaves room for infectious diseases for both pets and owners if not done carefully enough. Cooking the meat would move away from that risk, so studies on whether there's actually any benefit to the meat being raw. Finally I have very sadly seen a fair amount of intestinal perforations and death from bones.

@SimonJT a biscuit diet is the only diet suitable for cats. There is a current spate of cats testing positive for bovine tuberculosis after eating a popular commercially available raw diet which for legal reasons I can't name although a quick google search will bring up lots of info. Cats can't synthesise taurine they have to get it from food. A lack of it causes blindness and heart disease so it is absolutely essential for them to receive balanced nutrition

@BlessYourCottonSocks vaccinations for children are advised based on the manufacturer advice and studies - same goes for veterinary vaccines. Manufacturers have titre tested the distemper hepatitis and parvo virus to an efficacy of over 95% of dogs still being protected to 3 years. Leptospirosis is unable to be titre tested for as there is no way to check ongoing immunity so the manufacturers recommend yearly. Therefore most vaccination schedules are lepto yearly and DHP every 3.

As that is the only advice vets have from the drugs companies that manufacture vaccines, that is all we can recommend. It would be irresponsible to recommend anything different to what the manufacturers of the vaccine advises. You can titre test for the DHP component and then re vaccinate for that as immunity wanes (which will vary dog to dog) but lepto can't be titre tested so should be done yearly for guaranteed cover.

Do you respect your nurses and give them autonomy? (It’s not like you will say no... but still worth an ask!)
Currently a RVN, ready to leave profession/not return after my maternity. Because of the vets I work with.