Medical

Adverse reactions to food are quite common in both dogs and cats. However, contrary to common believe, only few cases of adverse food reactions are due to true food allergies. Adverse food reactions represent a group of disorders that are defined by gastrointestinal, dermatological, and less commonly respiratory signs in response to ingestion of a certain food. It should be remembered that there are other specific conditions that are either thought to be due to or worsened by diet that are not considered adverse food reactions such as acute pancreatitis, megaesophagus, or portosystemic shunts.

Heatstroke can be defined as severe hyperthermia resulting in thermal injury to tissues. Under normal circumstances, cats and dogs maintain their body temperature over a wide range of environmental temperature variations.

Immunoprophylaxis is the enhancement of a specific immune response to the specific pathogen. Humoral and cell-mediated immune response are critical to effective immunity. This response is induced by microbes, their components or by-products. The majority of vaccines prevent infectious disease, but not infection.

Congenital, infectious, neoplastic, nutritional and toxic causes of cardiac disease are occasionally encountered in primary and referral bovine practice. The presentation accompanying these proceedings will review the most commonly encountered conditions with an emphasis on dairy cattle in the Northern United States.

Fluid therapy remains one of the essential components of critical care medicine with the goal being to restore intravascular volume. Several choices are available to optimize the treatment of these patients and controversy will undoubtedly continue. Crystalloids have many advantages including they are widely available, inexpensive, have minimal effects on the coagulation system, and do not cause allergic reactions.

Anticoagulants, bromethalin and cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3) are all found in baits marketed for both household and outdoor/industrial areas. In addition, there are a number of baits containing strychnine or zinc phosphide that are labeled for moles, gophers, and similar rodents, that are meant to be placed in burrows or holes.

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The heifer selection program is a vital aspect of a commercial cow-calf operation. Since replacement heifers represent the future potential of the herd, successful replacement programs are a high priority item requiring careful attention by the ranch manager.

Many of the hospice and palliative care principles that have been successfully adopted in human hospice for decades are now being embraced to provide end of life care for terminal pets and their families by veterinary professionals. Steve Miles, M.D. said, "Death is not a medical event.

The liver is an important organ, responsible for breakdown of nutrients and for the synthesis of many molecules such as albumin, coagulation factors, cholesterol, glucose, and many others. The liver has an enormous regenerative capacity. For example, in humans half of a liver can be transplanted from a living donor to a recipient and within 6 weeks both the transplanted liver and the remaining liver of the donor will reach a hepatic volume.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or the more comprehensive term cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation (CPCR) is still one of the most important interventions performed in human or veterinary medicine. This is especially true in veterinary medicine when dealing with emergency and critical critically ill patients.

An outbreak of respiratory disease occurred in a kennel of racing greyhounds in 2004. While some dogs exhibited mild disease with fever and cough, some experienced peracute death with pulmonary hemorrhage (case fatality 36%). Virologic analysis revealed an influenza virus that was later found to be closely related to equine influenza virus subtype H3N8, sharing >96% genetic sequence identity.

Feline hepatic lipidosis (HL), a syndrome characterized by hepatocellular accumulation of lipid, intrahepatic cholestasis and hepatic dysfunction, is one of the most common liver disorders of the domestic cat accounting for approximately 50% of biopsy diagnoses. It may be a primary (idiopathic) condition or secondary to another disease process. Despite widespread interest and the numerous studies performed since HL was first described in the veterinary literature in 1977, the causes and pathogenic mechanisms of the disease are still largely unknown.