Sawyer the Office Cat's Outbox at Pittsboro vet [Hill Creek Vet]

Sunday, May 13th

Who says "Don't eat the daisies"?

mood: A little neglected!

Hey Everybody! Sawyer here, sharing a beef with my peeps out there. It seems everyone around here but me is getting flowers these days. I mean what gives? First the Lap (aka Dr. Davis) got some daisies from a special patient of hers. They were quite tasty…that is until she went and put them on a high shelf away from my taste buds. I mean sheesh, you accidentally knock a vase of water over near a computer and everyone starts yelling. I have enormous Maine paws for cripes sake! Then last week one of our patients got flowers and a card from her dog buddy and his Mommy. Everyone thought that was so sweet, but where were my flowers? I mean OK, so that dog had abdominal surgery but still! Where was the love when my mouth had ulcers in it? Or when I had diarrhea? Or when my food was taken away from me? Since when is it not all about me?????

Editor’s note: please don’t send Sawyer flowers, he’s hard enough to live with as it is.

Sawyer on 05.13.07 @ 10:40 PM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Monday, April 23rd

Thanks for having a spot in your heart for Spot!

Hey everybody! Sawyer here. Sorry I’ve been out of touch with you, I’ve been hiding a bit from some of the crazy people here at work. They seem to think I’m some sort of cover model; they keep dressing me up in crazy costumes and snapping pictures of me. I can barely keep up with my scheduled havoc-wreaking. Whew!

Anyway, I just wanted to send out a big thanks to everyone who helped us with our “Have a Spot in your Heart” fund. For those of you who haven’t been by lately, the folks here started this fund through our Animal Relief Fund to raise money for a dog named Spot. Spot was removed from some pretty awful living conditions, and has been a ward of the Chatham County Shelter. He is in need of a good home, but he has heartworms and needed to be neutered. Thanks to everyone’s generosity, we raised enough money to take care of his medical needs.

Spot was neutered here the other week. I personally checked on him to make sure he was comfy during his stay. Once he’s recovered from that procedure, we’ll be starting his heartworm treatment. Never fear, I’ll be supervising that as well.

Now that Spot’s been taken care of, if anyone is looking for a worthy cause I am in desperate need of some Hill’s t/d. Anyone? Anyone? Tax-deductible!!

Editor’s Note: Please do NOT give Sawyer any t/d; he’s on a strict diet because of his food allergies. At least, we try to keep his diet strict, he’s constantly trying to break his diet.

Sawyer on 04.23.07 @ 06:05 AM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Tuesday, April 17th

Recall update

Hey Everybody!

Sawyer here, on the prowl. Wanted to update you cool cats (and OK dogs) about this whole food recall thing. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little frustrated with it all. When we last chatted, I told you that a rat poison, aminopterin, was the cause of the problems. Well, unfortunately only one laboratory was able to find this compound in the food. So now the “experts” are saying that the problem is a contaminant of the wheat gluten called melamine. Melamine is a chemical used to make some plastics and fertilizers. What’s confusing about this is that melamine is not really toxic to cats; it doesn’t cause the kidney failure that’s been seen in affected pets. We don’t know if the melamine is causing the problem, or if it is a marker of the contaminated food and something else in it is causing the problem.

You may have heard that some additional foods have been added to the recall list, including some dog and cat treats, Alpo prime cuts in gravy canned food, and one of the prescription diets, Hill’s feline m/d dry. Another prescription formula made by Royal Canin was recently added to the recall, but this particular food was only sold in Canada. Websites with complete lists of the recalled foods are www.menufoods.com and www.fda.gov. If you have trouble finding a food in question, give us a call and we’ll be glad to help you.

So as you can see, we have a lot more questions than answers right now. So far, the doctors tell me my food is OK. A survey on VIN (a veterinary information source) has shown that veterinarians have seen over 1000 cases of animals with acute renal (kidney) failure. Most of these cases responded to treatment. The majority of affected animals have been cats.

The most common question we’ve been hearing from people here is “what do I feed my pet?”. Because we still don’t know exactly what caused this, we cannot tell you that a food is perfectly safe. For now, you may want to avoid foods with wheat gluten in them. Some people want to cook for their pets. This can cause problems if the food is not balanced (dogs and especially cats have special vitamin and mineral needs). If you want to make a balanced home-made diet for your dog or cat, the website www.balanceit.com can help you. If you enter the promotional code “VIN” you can download a free recipe. We don’t recommend this for long-term feeding, but this may help you with peace of mind until we get more answers.

All this talk of food has made me hungry. I think I hear an unattended food bowl calling me, so I’ll have to be going. Safe eating!

Sawyer

Sawyer on 04.17.07 @ 06:43 AM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Monday, April 2nd

Aminopterin

Hey Everybody! Sawyer here. I wanted to give my peeps an update on the pet food recall. You may have heard they identified the toxin in the food. It’s a drug called aminopterin, a rat poison that is banned in the US. It works differently than the rat poisons used here in the US (which cause bleeding or neurologic problems). It is similar to a chemotherapeutic medication (what they use to treat cancer). They believe it was in the wheat, which came from another country, China. It causes kidney disease and can cause bone marrow suppression. The bone marrow makes our red and white blood cells and platelets. These cells do important things, like carry oxygen, fight infection, and help stop bleeding. So far, we’ve seen a few cases of kidney disease but no bone marrow suppression. However, this can take longer to develop. So if you start feeling poorly and seem to have a lack of energy, come see the doctors here.

The doctors here tell me that there have been over 200 cases seen around the country, at least according to what veterinarians have posted on VIN (an online resource for veterinarians). A good website for information is www.avma.org.

Here’s hoping you are all feeling well and eating safe!
Sawyer

Sawyer on 04.02.07 @ 07:29 AM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Tuesday, March 20th

Pet Food Recall

mood: Pretty worried about my buddies out there

Holy cats everybody! Have you heard about the big food recall? I swear it’s a conspiracy to keep me hungry. Actually they tell me my food is not affected by this. Anyway, a lot of pet food brands have recalled a certain type of food, because several kitties have become sick. A possible culprit is a new type of wheat gluten that was used starting in December, but they don’t know for certain yet. It’s reportedly caused these kitties to go into kidney failure, and some have died. The doctors here tell me that signs of this disease can include drinking more water, urinating more, vomiting, decreased energy and (yipes!) loss of appetite. If your kitty (or dog for that matter) is showing these signs, be sure to bring him or her right in for evaluation. The doctors can run bloodwork and check a urine sample to see if the kidneys are working OK.

The food affected are NOT any dry diets; the recall involves mostly foods in pouches and some canned food. If you don’t have massive Maine paws and can operate a keyboard on your computer effectively, you can find a full list of products at www.menufoods.com/recall. This is the company that made foods for a lot of other companies. The foods were mostly sold at Kroger, Safeway, Walmart and PetsMart stores. The food was made between December and March. In addition to the foods listed at this site, Iams and Science Diet have voluntarily recalled some of their products that could be affected. You can find these products at www.fda/gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/hills03_07.html and www.iams.com. The foods are the chunks of meat with gravy type foods. Again, dry foods are NOT involved in this problem.

If you have been eating one of these foods, check the lot number to see if it’s involved in the recall. If it is, DON’T EAT ANY MORE. We recommend you come in for testing to see how your kidneys are doing. At this time, we don’t know if the pet food companies will be paying for this testing. The above sites have phone numbers you can call to ask them.

If you have any questions, give us a call here. I’ve stationed myself by the phones to help out.

Sawyer on 03.20.07 @ 11:43 PM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Saturday, February 17th

Transfusion Medicine :)

Hey Everybody! Sawyer here, and boy have I ever seen it all now. Big excitement tonight at the Creek. They FINALLY let me out of my room at the end of the day. I was rather miffed I can tell you. Anywho, where was I. Oh, yes. So I see the Lap and #2 scurrying around on some sort of mission. They were collecting all sorts of strange things and muttering something about blood donations. Well, that worried me at first, because the containers they were pulling out were awful big. I mean, I’m a Maine Coon and all but those containers looked like they could hold all the blood inside me and then some. It turns out they were going to collect blood for a transfusion for a dog, and they assured me that cat blood wouldn’t work. Whew!

So the victim, err donor, was a greyhound belonging Stephanie (one of my crew). Apparently greyhounds make good donor dogs because they tend to have more red blood cells than other types of dogs. They assure me this is natural, and not some sort of blood doping like in certain human sports! Well, Gracie the greyhound had been all excited about the car ride until it ended up at Hill Creek. However, despite her disappointment, she was a very willing donor. By willing, I mean with her mom and another person holding her, she allowed the vampires to suck her blood. I’m not sure I would have been so cooperative. The Lap first checked Gracie’s PCV (a measure of her red blood cells) to make sure she had enough to spare. Boy did she!! They were all excited by her PCV. Then they shaved a spot on her neck and applied a gel to numb the area. Good thing, too, ‘cause I saw the size of the needle they used. Yipes!!! Once the skin was numb, they scrubbed it really well and then put the needle in her big vein in her neck. Gracie was very stoic for it all, and everyone told her what a good girl she was being. They collected about 500 cc from her into special containers. I of course supervised the entire process, despite being yelled at more than once from certain parties. Apparently some felt that I might try to interfere with the process. As if!! OK, I admit that would’ve been really funny.

So once they were done Gracie and Stephanie left to get Gracie a nice thank-you treat. Did anyone give me thanks for my amazing supervision? NOT! I amused myself by playing with the discarded top to one of the containers.

Sawyer

PS-in case you were wondering why they did all this craziness (I sure was!), it was to have blood on hand for a dog with hemangiosarcoma. That’s a cancer of the blood vessels. This dog had a tumor on his spleen, and it started bleeding into his belly. When that happens, they can go into shock and even die from the blood loss (even though the blood is still technically in them). The doctors spent the day trying to get the spleen to stop bleeding. Once it stops, they can give the dog a transfusion to help him feel better until his body can reabsorb the blood he lost into his belly.

Sawyer on 02.17.07 @ 05:02 PM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Sunday, February 4th

Slentrol--A Diet Pill for Dogs

mood: hmmm...time for a snack

Hey Everybody! Sawyer here, back to fighting form after my recent “incident”. I maintain that I was set up, but we’ll put that behind us. So I was perusing the paper the other day and came across an interesting article. Apparently some company is coming out with a diet pill for dogs. Can you imagine! It’s called Slentrol. I asked the docs here about it, and they said that it works by keeping dogs from digesting all the food they eat. However, that undigested food passes on through and can cause diarrhea and other problems. Also, it only works for as long as the dog takes the medicine. And they assure me it is MOST DEFINITELY NOT FOR CATS. They looked at me quite pointedly when they said that. As if!!

So the bottom line is the doctors here say that there’s no shortcut for weight loss in pets or people, and you should use diet and exercise to get your chubby pooch to lose weight. Along those lines, I offer myself as a personal trainer to help motivate these canines to get moving…

Sawyer

PS-if you’d like to know more about Slentrol, the doctors are putting together an information sheet.

Sawyer on 02.04.07 @ 09:40 PM EST [link] [2 Comments ]

Tuesday, January 30th

Medication Morsels

Hey Everybody! Sawyer here, and boy what a week I’ve had. So Wednesday I saw my chance when the techs left a bowl of food unguarded. Score! I scarfed down the yummy canned food. It had a crunchy center, but I was so intent on getting the food in my tummy before they spotted me I didn’t stop to peruse said crunchy object. Well, that’s when all heck broke loose, whohoo! Apparently the crunchy object was a pain medication for a dog. That would have been bad enough, but that medicine interacts with another medicine that I’ve been taking for my allergies. Oops! They really should have warning labels or something.

So long story short, a merry chase ensued, and I was on the losing end of a battle with nasty tasting medicine. They shoved two kinds of nasty tasting liquid down my gullet, then put me in a cage and stood watching me. Suddenly, I felt all queasy and my precious hard-won food all came back up. To add insult to injury, they all cheered and took away my food before I could eat it again (second time’s even better, you know what I’m saying?).

Now as if that wasn’t bad enough, these crazy people stopped my medicine that keeps me from itching because they were afraid I’d get ulcers in my stomach. Well, I got ulcers all right, but in my mouth! My tongue really hurt and even though I’m starving it was torture to eat. So I would run up to my precious food bowl, but have to just look longingly at the food.

My peeps realized my distress and made appropriate noises (except for some who shall remain nameless who said I did this to myself. They know who they are and will find an appropriate present under their desks when they least expect it). They started me on medicine to soothe the ulcers and pain medicine. That has helped a little. They’ve also been giving me soft food that’s easier to eat (and tastier…score!).

So now my team has to give me several medications, and I must say I give them quite a time. HA! In the words of some people here, they brought this on themselves. This experience has got me thinking though, that there has to be a nicer way to give kitties medicine. We’re more finicky than dogs as a rule, so it can be more challenging to get pills into us. To help out with your folks at home, I found some ideas for them from a group that the doctors belong to, the IVAPM (they say that stands for International Veterinary Academy of Pain Management):

1. Remain calm! We cats can sense when you’re worried about something, and it makes us worried.
2. Coat the tablet lightly with butter or margarine to reduce the taste and help it slide down our throats (the doctors here also recommend following any pills or capsules with water to make sure the pill doesn’t stick in our throats).
3. Crush the tablet or open the capsule and mix with our favorite cat food, tuna fish, cream cheese, or other flavored food (check with your doctor first, some medications will be inactivated by doing this).
4. Have tablets placed in gelatin capsules to eliminate a bitter taste.
5. Place tablet inside a favorite treat with a cruncy outer label (example is Pounce hairball treats)
6. Hide tablet or capsule in Pill Pocket (they’re tasty!) or Flavor-doh (I haven’t tried this but it also sounds tasty).
7. Have the medication compounded in a yummy flavored liquid or tasty chewy treat.
8. Obtain a “pill popper” to help get the tablet or capsule into us and save your fingers.

If your people still have trouble (way to go you bad cats!), have them call my people here for help or advice. They’re a sneaky crew, believe me.

Here’s hoping my mouth will feel better soon! Since it’s been hurting I haven’t wanted to groom myself, so I’m looking a little rough. Maybe my peeps here will stop torturing me with medications long enough to brush me a little….

Sawyer

Sawyer on 01.30.07 @ 07:25 AM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Sunday, December 10th

Big News!! New Computers!

Hey everybody! Big excitement here this weekend. This man came in and started crawling all over the hospital on a ladder, putting cables in the ceiling. I was most intrigued, and followed him about. I even helped hold the ladder steady for him with my enormous Maine paws (not being a cat, I worried about his sense of balance). Since he was new to the clinic and unaware of the t/d ban, I tried to get him to abandon all the cable business and help me look for food, but he wouldn’t.

It turns out he was helping to prepare for a new computer system we’re going to get soon. How exciting! However, I was a little disturbed to find they weren’t planning to install a computer in my room. How am I supposed to update my blog regularly?? Not to worry, I slipped the guy some kibble in exchange for a secret cable line to my room.

Tugger on 12.10.06 @ 02:05 PM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Sunday, December 10th

Pet Names!

mood: I'm so lucky to be me!

Hi Everybody! Sawyer here, trouble not far behind, ha! I’ve been keeping everyone on their toes here trying to sneak food that’s not on my special diet. I think my full name is No, Sawyer, bad cat! Speaking of names, I found a list in Dr. D’s veterinary journal about the most common dog and cat names. I thought it was pretty interesting (i.e. it kept me out of trouble for about 30 seconds) so I’m sharing it with y’all:

Dog Cat
1. Max Max
2. Bailey Tigger
3. Buddy Smokey
4. Molly Tiger
5. Maggie Chloe
6. Lucy Shadow
7. Daisy Lucy
8. Bella Angel
9. Jake Oliver
10. Rocky Simba

Living at a veterinary hospital, I can confirm that these names are indeed popular. I wonder if these pets have longer formal names too like me! Gotta go, I see the food closet has been left unattended. Victory is mine!

Tugger on 12.10.06 @ 02:00 PM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Sunday, December 10th

Catnip!

mood: Woo hoo zee!

Hi everybody! Sawyer here with some exciting news for you cats. There’s some primo catnip available here. Well, to be more specific the catnip is enclosed in a fabric toy, but it smells AWESOME! They tried to hide them from me, but as you can see I found them. I managed to bite through the plastic bag they were in before I was thwarted. However, while I am being denied you don’t need to be. Tell your people to stop by and buy a catnip toy for you. The money goes to help animals in ARF.

That’s all for now, I’ve got to go chase my tail for a while.
Sawyer

Tugger on 12.10.06 @ 01:57 PM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Sunday, December 10th

No T/D!??

mood: Not so very happy!

Hi guys! Sawyer here, with a few complaints. Now generally speaking I’m a pretty easy-going fellow but there are some changes going on here that have me rather disturbed. In fact, I was so upset that I actually attended the staff meeting. I showed up early to get a good seat. But to no avail. Oh, sorry I got ahead of myself. Let me back up and explain.

In my patrols about the clinic I’ve found the most delectable morsels which are curiously contained in bowls with lids. So strange, these humans. Thanks to my man-paws, though, these lids are but a mere nuisance. Or perhaps I should say Maine-paws. Ha, ha!! I crack myself up sometimes. Now where was I? Oh yes, the delectable morsels. So as you can see from the photo, I can overcome these obstacles between me and the treats. Oh, how I love these treats. The doctors have asked me to make the following statement: the treats of which I speak are Hill’s t/d diet. Although it’s made as a dental diet, the doctors recommend them as treats because they have a lot of fat. When we cats (and dogs) bite into the treats, they scrape the plaque off our teeth. There, I said it. I tried to tell them that y’all aren’t interested in that stuff, but they’re all into the education. Please!

Where was I? Ah, yes. So now that I’ve got my treat retrieval down to a science, they up and take them away! I don’t get it. So I went to the staff meeting to see what was up. I heard my name being tossed about, and something about food allergy, diet (DIET???) trial, and NO t/d!! I’m definitely looking into this some more, but if any of you cool cats (or dogs) out there know anything about this, give me a holler. You might have to shout loud, because I’m doing a lot of hollering of my own these days.

Tugger on 12.10.06 @ 01:54 PM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Sunday, December 10th

Hey everybody!

Hey everybody! Sawyer here, glad to know you. Please forgive any typos, I have gigantic Maine Coon paws and so typing is a little hard. In fact, I think I’ll have my staff type for me as I dictate. Yeah, that’s a great idea, frees me up to wreak havoc.

So a little about me. I’ve been here at Hill Creek for about ten months now. As I mentioned, I’m a Maine Coon cat. I have a polyp in my ear. It’s not hurting me, but it makes me prone to ear infections. The doctors here are going to fix me up. We Maine Coons are a hearty bunch; once I’m all grown I’ll weigh about 25 pounds. This is good, because I’ve got some scores to settle with the staff here once I get a little weight on. Particularly that one doctor, I think Tugger called her the Lap. Speaking of Tugger, I read through his blog one night when I was bored. He sounds like a good guy, wish I could’ve known him. I think he’d have made an awesome wing-man on my adventures. Everyone here says I’ve got big paws to fill now that Tugger’s gone. That confuses me, as I have enormous paws. Seriously, have you seen the paws on a Siamese? I wonder if they bind their paws when they’re kittens…

So where was I? Ah yes, settling scores. I’d rather not share details, but they know who they are. Necessary vaccines my paw-they just like shooting us up with harpoons! And if they don’t want me to sample the treats, why do they leave them out for me? And if they don’t want me to kill the snakes (I believe you humans call them leashes) why do they hang them on hooks so invitingly? They set me up, I tell you.

Gotta go for now, I see an unguarded stethoscope (they’re so tasty, especially the parts that go in the doctors’ ears).

Tugger on 12.10.06 @ 01:48 PM EST [link] [No Comments ]

Monday, September 11th

Sawyer's First Entry

As many of you know in the fall of 2005 we lost our beloved Tugger (you can still read his original Web log by clicking here). Although there is no way to replace the immortal Tugger a very special feline was sent to us as a balm for our loss. Sawyer is a 1 year old red classic tabby Maine Coon Cat. He has turned out to be quite an amazing and mischievous character! We’re not sure if Tugger would approve, but we’re pretty sure he would at least be amused by the antics of Sawyer. Much like the character Tom Sawyer, our new clinic cat spends his days in a never-ending string of adventures and misadventures which keep the staff happy and busy all at once. I suspect that if we can slow him down enough to visit the computer that he might, just might, start up his own blog. But his is likely to be full of vim and vinegar and a touch of rock and roll. He’s just that kind of a guy!
Tugger on 09.11.06 @ 09:45 PM EST [link] [1 Comment ]