My 7-month-old cocker spaniel was diagnosed with a heart murmur, but the vet said that I really did not need to worry about it as it is low grade. I know that she needs to be spayed, but I am worried that the surgery might complicate this situation. My vet said that it should not be a problem at all. Can you advise me?
I am not a vet so I really cannot tell you the correct course of action. However I have had a few dogs that had heart murmurs and my vet, like yours, told me not to worry about them. I never did, and all was OK. It was not like my dogs were pulling sleds for a living. Their main physical activity is how fast they can wag their tails.
The issue here is in your relationship with your vet. My vets have been looking after all my pets for more than 20 years, and I trust what they say. If they examine one of my pets and tell me that the pet is a good candidate for a surgical procedure, then I allow the surgery to be performed. Of course there have been times when things did not go the way we wanted them to – but I can honestly say that this was not the fault of my vets. These things just happen sometimes.
It is your job as a pet keeper to talk with your vet candidly about such issues. If you are not happy with how the conversation turns out, you are always free to get a second opinion.
We just got a 10-month-old cockatoo. The pet store sold us a bag of seeds and one of pellets and told us to feed these to the bird with fruits and vegetables. We just took the bird to an avian vet for a well-bird checkup and the vet told us to throw away the seeds and just feed the bird the pellets. However, when I look at the ingredients on the bag of pellets it lists most of the same seeds that are in the bag that the pet store sold us. So if the pellets are just made up of seeds anyway, then what is the point of them?
The issue here is not that seeds are bad for birds. It is the proportion of what seeds the bird eats that can be a problem. If you give a bird a cup of a seed mixture and it contains 12 different seeds in various proportions and the bird eats every single seed in the cup, then the bird has been eating a balanced diet. However if the bird picks and chooses and eats only three or four types of seeds, then the bird is not getting the proper nutrition. Just one of the pellets has all the types of seeds in it in the correct proportion that the bird needs so it is totally balanced.
Contact Marc Marrone at petxperts2@aol.com
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