Liver and Pancreatic Disease: Test Your Knowledge!

Question

What has happened to this dog's gall bladder?

Answer

This is a gall bladder mucocoele which has been caused by the accumulation of semi-solid to solid mucinous bile-laden concretions in the bladder accompanied by cystic mucinous hyperplasia of the gallbladder wall.

The exact reason for their formation is unknown and many factors are likely implicated in their formation including gall bladder stasis, choleocystitis and localised inflammation. They are seen in some breeds with increased frequency such as Shetland sheepdogs and Cocker spaniels. Endocrine disease, including Hyperadrenocorticism, hypothyroidism and other lipid abnormalities, have been associated with mucocoele formation.

Surgery, as performed in this dog, is usually required and, if successful, is associated with a good long-term outcome.

Test Your Knowledge Cardiac Conundrum

Question 8

A 6-year-old neutered male Labrador presents to you with a 2-week history of exercise intolerance and a collapsing episode 2 hours before presentation. The collapse happened when the dog tried to chase a cat. The dog seemed unconscious to the owner, there was no tonic or tonic-clonic activity and the collapse episode lasted less than 30 seconds with a fast and complete recovery afterward.

On physical examination the heart rate was 40 bpm with a regular and strong femoral pulse, no cardiac murmur was detected and the clinical examination was otherwise unremarkable. You performed an ECG to characterize the bradycardia.

What’s your ECG diagnosis? And, what is the most appropriate treatment for this patient?

Answer

The ECG shows a complete atrioventricular dissociation (P waves are not associated with the QRS complexes) with a slow ventricular escape rhythm. This is a third degree atrioventricular block (complete AV block). The recommended treatment for complete AV block is a pacemaker implantation.  

Third degree AV block is the most common indication for pacemaker implantation. In veterinary cardiology the most frequently implanted pacemaker system is a rate-responsive, single chamber and single lead (VVIR) pacemaker.

What an explosive new "Japanese Cat Communication" study means for cat owners looking to bond with their cats

In case you're not a follower of all things cat research, I'm happy to present a breakthrough study on the matter…

This new study has shown us something fascinating about how animals think and comprehends us.

The results basically indicated that felines have an astounding ability to understand our words. They can understand human language!

Japanese researchers in Tokyo uncovered this special trait, which separates domestic house cats from all other large, wild felines (tigers, lions and so forth). It turns out the smallest and cutest ones of them all are the most verbally sophisticated. It appears house cats have actually evolved to understand us as part of their domestication.

●     They understand us by our pitch. They can tell if we're angry or if we want to hug them.

●     They can understand us by our words. They know their name, our name, and a host of other titles we assign to things around the house or activities.

●     And most fascinating of all, they've evolved to mirror us. In the wild, cats prefer to be pin drop quiet. They are hunters that catch prey by closing distance through silence and camouflage followed by a brief sprint. This is why when cats communicate to each other, the primary device is their body, not their vocals.

And yet with you and me, cats constantly break this rule. Why, though?

Again, it goes back to domestication. Watching humans communicate to each other through voice, cats have learned to mirror us.

The fascinating thing about this brain-level chance is that cats have developed a sort of language of their own. In between the meows, purrs, and hisses is a genuine language built on tone and word length.

Yes, it can be deciphered. In fact, it already has. This is what the Cat Language Bible by Jonas Jurgella is in a nutshell. It is years of research into the field of human to feline communication, condensed and compressed into a simple guide that anyone can pick up and use on-the-fly with their own cat.

●     Use it to interpret cat sounds as they're happening. Now you can finally understand if your cat is sick or just energetic.

●     Read his thoughts by reading his body. It's tough to know when your cat wants to be left alone versus when he's genuinely sad and feeling secluded. Now you can tell using some verbal and nonverbal giveaways common to all felines.

●     Speak to him in a way that he can understand. Cats may not have the advanced language capability that humans do -- yet they make sounds that can also be understood and interpreted by us.

●     Would you like to actually say something to your cat that he could really understand on his own terms? The Cat Language Bible™ will tell you how to do it.

See the FREE video here for more information

In my opinion as a cat owner, this is a must-have in any animal household. Pick it up, and see how much closer a connection you can build with your own feline through the power of direct human to cat conversation. 

Cat Language Bible Review

Review: The Cat Language Bible

Could this guide really be the key to understanding your cat through true-to-word language?

Forgive me for being a bad parent, but sometimes I just can't understand what Scruffles is SAYING between all the meows and purrs.

I guess you could call him a big yapper with the shrewd, "let nothing truly be told" face of a master poker player.

Frankly, he doesn't even need the poker face when he just says the same 2 sounds. Meow. Purrrrrr. How could anyone possibly make sense of that?

Well, you'd be surprised.

As Scruffle’s caretaker and owner, our language miscommunications can cause friction at times. While I'm trying to figure out whether he's hungry or tired, angry or just energetic, he's off in his own world not making anything easier for me.

The Cat Language Bible™ immediately stood out to me as a way to finally break the code with Scruffles and have an honest, one-on-one, human-to-cat dialogue.

That was if the marketing lived up to the program’s description.

This course brands itself as a way to understand what your cat is trying to communicate to you – through body language as well as actual cat sounds.

Being a feline with more secrets than he has lived, the prospect of knowing what my cat was thinking, feeling, and sometimes plotting against me was immensely interesting.

What can I say, I'm a bit of an eavesdropper, and I wanted to know what Scruffles actually thought about me as he made efforts to hide, stalk, or occasionally pounce me in my sleep!

Body Language

What I really like about this guide is that it's not pure text. They show multiple shots of cats exhibiting different signs based on their behavior. For a book about language including the bodily variety, I think this is essential, and they delivered more than just a basic text description by actually showing cats in various emotional and communicative states.

When you think about it, all animals have certain reflexes that they adapt based on their environment. When scared, they recoil, just like humans do. When excited or fearful, they have different body mechanics to suit each situation.

The reason that you and I struggle with this is because there are slight variations that are hard for non-felines to detect. Just like when a human being furrows his eyebrow to show confusion or disdain, you really need to understand the subtleties that are on display when you look at a cat's body as well.

The Cat Language Bible™ shows that critical nuance of behavior. It goes to that extra depth to really help you understand and decipher the body language of cats.

Verbal communication

Yes, meow, screech, and a purrr are obviously different in meaning. I think of them as the "primary cat words."

But unlike human beings, cats focus more on tone to convey different ideas and emotions than humans do. And here again The Cat Language Bible™ breaks it down, highlighting differences between screeching tones and soft tones, as well as low, high, and medium pitches.

It's worth noting that every cat is different and you need to establish a base for what is loud versus soft with your own feline. Even with Scruffles being as low-key as he is, I didn't find this to be an issue at all.

Overall rating

Are you a cat owner? Do you want to understand your cat better? Then get The Cat Language Bible™. It teaches exactly what it says: the language of a cat.

I don't know of any other guide that goes into such depth with the picture examples, breakdowns of pitch and tone variations, and lessons on cat behaviors and emotional states.

This guide also changed my understanding of Scruffle's true intelligence. It turns out that house cats have evolved to speak to us in the way that no other felines really have. Their language skills, although not quite matching our own, are highly sophisticated and nuanced.

The Cat Language Bible™ is an essential guide then, for understanding how cats think, show emotion, and even manipulate us at times based on their language, both in body and voice.

It's time to talk cat. 

Watch author Jonas Jurgella’s FREE video presentation here

Vets Needed in Sharjah, UAE, Salary: 12000

• Posted On:19th November 2016
• Employment Type:Full Time
• Monthly Salary:8,000 - 11,999
• Minimum Work Experience:5-10 Years
• Minimum Education Level:Masters Degree
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• Company Size:1-10
• Career Level:Manager

My client is currently looking to recruit a full time vet to work at their award winning Small Animal practice . The practice is forward thinking, modern and constantly looking to improve standards and levels of service. The practice offers an interesting caseload, fantastic facilities, a very committed and enthusiastic team, The ideal candidate will be confident in all areas of surgery and consults and ideally have at least 5 years experience. An interest in feline medicine would be advantageous but not essential.

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Name This Lung Pattern

Dear Vets

 

How would you describe this lung pattern?
List your differential diagnoses.

Answer

This patient has an alveolar lung pattern.

When the normally air-filled alveoli become flooded with fluid or cells, the background opacity of the lung changes from a gas lucency to a soft-tissue opacity.

This soft tissue opacity, caused by the accumulated fluid / cells within the alveoli merges with, and therefore obscures, the normal soft tissue markings of the pulmonary vessels and the walls of the airways.

However, the airways themselves are highlighted against the abnormal soft tissue background, and can be identified as branching linear lucencies (arrowed below).  These branching lucencies are known as ‘air bronchograms’ and are the hallmark of an alveolar infiltrate.  This patient has an alveolar lung pattern.

Answer continued

Possible differential diagnoses for an alveolar lung pattern include:

• Pneumonia
• Oedema (cardiogenic or non-cardiogenic)
• Haemorrhage
• Neoplasia

In this patient the location of the changes (within the cranio-ventral lung fields and superimposed on the cardiac silhouette) would be most consistent with aspiration pneumonia.

Feline Ultrasound Case Study

Question

A 5 year old domestic short hair cat presents with a 24 hour history of lethargy, anorexia and severe tachypnoea.

Following a physical examination and after initial stabilisation in an oxygen chamber, basic thoracic ultrasound and echocardiography views are obtained.

1. What are the main ultrasonographic findings on the image below?
2. What is your differential diagnosis at this stage?

Answer

The first scan shows loss of the normal lung appearance (soft tissue-air interface) which is substituted by a diffuse hypoechogenicity (fluid) and floating pleural tissue. The diagnosis is severe pleural effusion.

Differential diagnosis includes a pure transudate (e.g. due to hypoalbuminaemia), a modified transudate (e.g. due to neoplasia, diaphragmatic hernia or congestive heart failure), a pyothorax (due to bacterial infection), a non-septic exudate (e.g. FIP), a chylothorax (e.g. due to cardiac disease, neoplasia or idiopathic) and a haemothorax (due to trauma, neoplasia or coagulopathy).

The second scan is a right parasternal short axis view at the level of the aorta and the left atrium. There is evidence of severe left atrial enlargement with an Aorta/Left atrium ratio markedly above 1.6.

There is evidence of left sided heart disease leading to congestive heart failure (pleural effusion). The most likely disease for a patient of this age is a primary cardiomyopathy such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or restrictive cardiomyopathy. Congenital cardiac disease or secondary cardiomyopathies (e.g. hyperthyroidism) are much less likely.

A full echocardiographic examination (after thoracocentesis) should be carried out as the next step. This should be followed by medical therapy for congestive heart failure.