Nutrition

Educational push hopes to make hospital team, pet owners 'nutrifluent'

Often clients will consult their veterinarians regarding conditioning, nutrition, supplementation and managing horses exercising in extreme heat.

Use these tools and guidelines to increase your nutritional knowledge.

Muscle wasting and other abnormalities may be lying just beneath the surface.

Providing appropriate treats for pets doesn't have to be tricky.

How to conduct an effective interview with clients.

Salmonella contamination may be the culprit in severe 2006 and 2008 outbreaks, especially affecting small children.

Chair of the new Academy of Veterinary Nutrition Technicians, Kara Burns, left, stands with the chair of the NAVTA Committee on Veterinary Technician Specialties, Amy Butzier, CVT, (VTS Equine).

Toronto, Ontario -- Menu Foods -- known largely for a widespread pet-food recall in 2007 -- was purchased by Arkansas-based Simmons Pet Food, Inc. for $239 million.

This online on-demand course presents a series of case studies that teach veterinary professionals how to use nutrition to tackle everyday GI challenges. (2 CE credits)

This on-demand online module includes a step-by-step approach to setting up an in-clinic weight management program, as well as six case studies covering a range of cat and dog weight issues. (1 CE credit)

When "big-boned" doesn't cover a pet's condition anymore, veterinary team members say conversations about pet obesity are important ... but not with every client.

Veterinary clients are turning down therapeutic diets for pets, complaining that they're too expensive. Are you the reason cats and dogs aren't getting the food veterinarians say they need?

Many hospitalized and critical care pets are at risk for becoming severely malnourished because they lack the appetite or the ability to eat. By instituting nutritional support you want to meet the pets' nutritional requirements, and if possible prevent additional deterioration.

MYTH: Meat by-products are inferior in quality compared to whole meat in a diet.

In their natural environment, cats are an obligate carnivore, meaning that their nutritional needs are met by eating a diet that consists of animal-based proteins (i.e. mice, birds). How have our efforts to domesticate cats been affected by this dietary requirement?

Addressing the nutritional needs of our hospitalized and critical care patients can dramatically improve their outcomes, but also allows them to return home sooner. Oral enteral nutrition is the ideal route, but if the patient is unable or unwilling to consume at least 85% of their calculated resting energy requirements (RER) than another route needs to be utilized.

People have spent much time and energy over the years molding dogs into various shapes to suit our needs; The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds lists 91 hound breeds, 43 working breeds, 44 herding breeds, 49 gun dogs and 31 terrier breeds. Due to our changing life style, many of these breeds are no longer needed for what they were bred.

Does the use of feeding tubes have a place in everyday practice? We are all familiar with the use of feeding tubes for Hepatic Lipidosis cats, but how many times do we deal with the older animal with no obvious physical problem other than an unwillingness to eat adequate (in our opinion) amounts of food?

Instead of viewing anorexia as a secondary problem that will improve when the primary disease has resolved, it is better to be proactive and administer nutrients early.

The number of pets that are overweight or obese has reached epidemic proportions in the USA and other industrialized countries. For example, just over 35% of adult cats in the USA are overweight or obese. As veterinarians, we need to be proactive on focusing on obesity prevention.

Replacement heifer development is a critically important area for veterinarians to offer production medicine advice to their beef-producing clients. In order for replacement heifers to calve at approximately 24 months of age and to reach puberty the equivalent of three heat cycles before the start of the mature cow breeding season, heifers must become puberal by 11 to 13 months of age.

The past decade has seen a revolution in our understanding of adipose tissue. The functions of fat have traditionally been understood as energy storage, thermal insulation, and structural support for some organs. It is now known that adipose tissue is metabolically active and constitutes the largest endocrine organ in the body with unlimited growth potential at any stage of life.

Dietary therapy plays such an integral role in the management of gastrointestinal (GI) diseases that it constitutes a part of the therapeutic plan in virtually every such case. Diet can be part of the diagnostic process as well, such as using an elimination diet in a dietary trial. It is beyond the scope of this discussion to address each disease of the GI system and the recommended diagnostic and therapeutic approach for each.

The most common application of nutrition and nutraceuticals in the world of pet pain is among chronic, maladaptive pain patients... These are the patients who benefit the most from a multi-modal, multi-target approach to their pain relief. In order to provide the very best care for these patients so as to achieve the best outcome on their behalf, we need to adhere to a few simple strategies.