Looking After Your Pet

General guidance for dogs, cats and rabbits, written for our local conditions in the Rangitīkei district. If your pet is unwell, please call us rather than relying on general advice.

Routine care at a glance

Parasites

Intestinal worms. Adult dogs and cats need worming every three months. Puppies and kittens need it far more often: every two weeks from two weeks of age until twelve weeks, then monthly until six months. Get the dose right by weighing your pet rather than guessing, and reweigh growing animals each time.

Fleas. Fleas are active year round here but peak from November to March. Treat every pet in the household on the same day, every month, and wash bedding in hot water. If you are still seeing fleas after a month of treatment, the usual cause is an untreated animal in the house or a product applied too infrequently, not resistance.

Ticks and heartworm. Neither is established in New Zealand, so no routine prevention is needed for either. Both matter if you are bringing a pet in from overseas or taking one abroad — talk to us well before you travel.

Sheep measles (Taenia ovis). Relevant locally for dogs with access to raw sheep meat or offal. It does not make the dog ill, but it costs sheep farmers carcasses. Never feed raw sheep meat, and worm working and farm dogs every month with a product containing praziquantel.

Lungworm and leptospirosis. Both are worth asking us about if your dog works stock, swims in rivers, or has rats around the property.

Dental care

Around eight in ten dogs and cats over the age of three have some degree of dental disease. It is painful, and pets rarely show it — they simply keep eating.

Signs to look for: bad breath, brown or yellow tartar along the gum line, red or bleeding gums, dropping food, chewing on one side, pawing at the mouth, reluctance to play with toys.

What helps

• Brushing with a pet toothpaste. Never use human toothpaste; it contains fluoride and often xylitol.
• Introduce brushing slowly: let them lick the paste, then touch the brush to one tooth, and build up over a couple of weeks.
• Dental diets and VOHC-approved chews reduce tartar. Ask us which ones we stock.
• Raw meaty bones can help but carry risks of fractured teeth and obstruction. Never feed cooked bones.
• Have the teeth checked at every annual visit.

Once tartar has formed, brushing will not remove it. A scale and polish under anaesthetic is the only way to reset, after which home care keeps it away.

Weight and feeding

Roughly four in ten pets we see are overweight, and it shortens their lives.

How to check at home

• You should be able to feel the ribs easily with flat hands, without pressing.
• Looking down from above, there should be a visible waist behind the ribs.
• From the side, the belly should tuck up rather than run straight or sag.

Practical steps

• Measure meals with a cup or scales instead of estimating.
• Treats should be no more than 10 per cent of daily food. Vegetables like carrot and green beans work well as low-calorie treats for dogs.
• Feed to the pet in front of you, not to the number on the packet, which is a starting point only.
• Weight loss should be slow: about 1 to 2 per cent of body weight per week.

Bec runs free nurse weight checks. Most owners find monthly weigh-ins the single most useful part of a weight-loss program.

Foods that are toxic to dogs and cats: chocolate, grapes and sultanas, onion, garlic, leek, chives, macadamia nuts, xylitol (in sugar-free gum, peanut butter and some baked goods), cooked bones, bread dough, alcohol, and any human medication not prescribed for them. Lilies are lethal to cats, including the pollen.

Summer and heat

Summer temperatures here sit in the mid-20s and reach the low 30s in a hot nor'wester. That is more than enough: heatstroke can kill within 30 minutes, and most cases we see are in cars or in rabbit hutches rather than out walking.

• Walk dogs in the early morning or evening on hot days. If the footpath is too hot for the back of your hand for five seconds, it is too hot for paws.
• Never leave a pet in a parked car, even briefly, even with windows down.
• Provide multiple water bowls in shade, plus a shallow clam-shell pool for dogs.
• Flat-faced breeds, overweight pets, black-coated dogs, rabbits and older animals overheat fastest.
• Rabbits are far more at risk from heat than cold. Bring hutches into shade, add frozen water bottles wrapped in a towel, and keep airflow moving.

Signs of heatstroke: heavy noisy panting, bright red gums, drooling thick saliva, wobbliness, vomiting, collapse. Wet the pet with cool — not iced — water, put a fan on them, and drive to us immediately. Call on the way.

Toxic algae and baits

New Zealand has no snakes. The two things that kill dogs suddenly here are toxic algae in the rivers and the baits used for pest control.

Toxic algae (Phormidium). From late spring through summer, black or dark brown mats grow on the rocks in the Rangitīkei and its tributaries. They smell musty, they wash up on the edge, and dogs eat them. A lethal dose is very small. Signs appear within minutes to a few hours: twitching, muscle tremors, wobbliness, rapid breathing, convulsions. There is no antidote. Do not let dogs near river edges when warnings are posted, rinse them if they have been in the water, and drive to us immediately if you see tremors — call on the way.

1080, brodifacoum and pindone. Aerial 1080 operations and ground baiting for possums, rats and rabbits happen on and around farmland here. 1080 has no antidote and is almost always fatal. Anticoagulant baits (brodifacoum, pindone) are treatable if we see the dog early, and vitamin K1 works, but treatment runs for weeks.

If you suspect any bait or algae exposure: bring the packet or a photograph of the warning sign, keep the pet quiet, and call us on the way in. Do not wait to see whether signs develop.

Other seasonal hazards locally

• Barley grass seeds from late spring: check between toes, in ears and under armpits after walks in dry paddocks.
• Snail bait (metaldehyde): common on rural properties and an emergency. Bring the packet with you.
• Magpie and hedgehog encounters: usually minor, but puncture wounds get infected fast and need checking.
• Bee and wasp stings: usually mild swelling, but call us if the face swells or breathing changes.

Puppies and kittens

• First visit at 6 to 8 weeks for a health check, vaccination and worming.
• Socialisation window closes around 14 to 16 weeks. Expose them to as many people, surfaces, noises and situations as you can, in a positive way, before then. Carry unvaccinated puppies rather than skipping the exposure entirely.
• Puppy preschool runs over four Wednesday evenings each school term.
• Microchipping is compulsory for dogs under the Dog Control Act 1996 — every dog registered for the first time since 1 July 2006 must be chipped within two months. Cats are not legally required to be chipped, though we strongly recommend it and lodge every chip with the NZ Companion Animal Register.
• Dogs must be registered with the district council from three months of age, and re-registered every year by 1 July. We can do the chip and the paperwork at the same visit.
• There is no law requiring desexing in New Zealand, but councils charge a lower registration fee for a desexed dog, and we recommend it for every pet not in a registered breeding programme.

Senior pets

Cats over 10 and dogs over 8 benefit from a six-monthly check. Ageing changes are easy to miss at home and easy to mistake for "just getting old".

Things worth mentioning to us: drinking more or urinating more, weight loss with a good appetite, stiffness or reluctance on stairs, changed sleep patterns, night vocalising, lumps that have changed, bad breath, or coughing.

Arthritis is very common and very treatable. Non-slip mats, ramps instead of jumps, raised food bowls, a warm bed away from draughts, keeping weight down, and modern pain relief make a large difference.

When to call us rather than wait

Call the clinic on (06) 550 4470, or the after-hours mobile 021 550 4470, if your pet is not eating for more than 24 hours, is vomiting repeatedly, has diarrhoea with blood, is drinking noticeably more, is limping and not improving after 48 hours, has an eye that is squinting or cloudy, is scratching so much that skin is broken, or is simply behaving in a way you know is not right for them. Owners are usually correct about that last one.

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