Parasitology Pages: Toxocarosis.

One of my objectives with this blog is to stick to subjects I have personal experience and knowledge of.  That usually means veterinary aspects or the conservation biology of endangered animal species I have come across.

Yesterday I came across Toxocara canis the first time.  This has to be one of the most striking internal parasites of puppies that you could come across.  Two weeks ago I acquired a Siberian Husky puppy.  I grew concerned with her failure to put in weight, diarrhoeia, vomiting and inappetence,  I had been weighing her several times a day.  I have also been keeping a close eye on her toilet habits - not least becaause this is part of her house training. Yesterday I observed her in the cat of defecating.  I could not believe the size of the helminth worm she passed in her faeces. It was quite unmistakeable.  The worm was obtained using clinician's rubber gloves for purposes of examination.  These worms have to be properly stretched out to measure them.  Measuring them is fundamental to identifying them.  This one was approx 10cm. I was too shocked to be customarily scientific about it.

The active ingredient is febantel in the wormer/anthelminthic used.  Four hours after administration, the worm was passed.  My concern now is how many more there are.  But the prescription is for three days, then 15 and that should be suficiente to get the worms at any stage of their life cycle,

The taxonomic hierarchy is

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Nemathelminthes (roundworms)
Class Nematoda
Order Ascaridida
Superfamily Ascaridoidea
Family Ascarididae
Genus Toxocara
Species Toxocara canis

What I want to be taken from this is that identification is relatively easy, though it takes a parasitologist to confirm differential diagnosis with Toxascaris leonina.  A dog digests its food in approx four hours and I was pleased with Febantel.  The puppy is now thriving.

Peregrine Falcon. Fauna Cuiabana. Cuiabá Basin Fauna Pages.

I have it on good authority that a Peregine Falcon has been seen in Rondonópolis recently.

Consulting the book 'Raptors of the World' by Ferguson-Lees and Christie, and, specifically, the distribution maps, it can be seen that the Peregrine is a raptor that may be reasonably expected to be an occasional visitor to Mato Grosso.

The person who saw it is a former student of mine that I taught the basic prinviples of falconry and hawking to once upon a time. He is currently training sibling male and female Aplomado falcons to fly to the lure.  On such occasions other raptors may be reasonbly expected to get involved.  This is possibly the only time in a falconer's/naturalist's/ornithologist's life when the presence of a wild raptor in one's midst may possibly be considered unwelcome. 

I have had Aplomados come down when I have been rehabilitating Roadside Hawks and training American Kestrels. A Peregrine is a fortunate, unfortunate sighting indeed!

Storage of Puppy Food: Cuiabá

Here in Central Western Brazil the climate can be quite unforgiving if you are a lad from the uplands of North Wales.  We live in a tropical environment. Though I am no stranger to foreign travel/living, the heat here is extreme, falling usually in the region of 35 to forty five celsius. With occasional cold fronts in  July when the temperature drops to 12 celsius. I have spent my whole life involved with animals, and such climatic extremes demand special precautions if our pets are to remain healthy and, indeed, thrive,

This blog includes a simple tip.  If you have a dog here in Cuiabá, you should keep its dog food in a sealable container.  This is because the food is perishable.

Dogs eat by using their sense of smell. If the dog food is not kept in a sealable container, it will lose its aroma.  What veterinary surgeons refer to as an organoleptic property.  Keep the food in a sealble container.  Take a week's quantity and seal that in a sealable ice cream tub.  Thus you have the dog's food ready for a week and you don't have to keep opening the main store.  And puppies should recive three to four meals a days.  They may digest a meal in four hours, with inter-breed and individual variations.  Good luck.

Analysis of Commercial Processed Dog Food.

I celebrated completion of Vets' School recently by getting a puppy.  A Siberian Husky. As she has been eating less than I would prefer, I have been paying close attention to her food intake and weight changes.  They leave a lot to be desired, so I looked at the ingredientes of her dog food.

As a Brit living in Brazil and who learned the Portuguese language by ear, the phrase "if you want something doing, do it yourself" sometimes comes to mind.  I am about to take my pup to the vet, which is a sound move because I am on the cusp of qualifying but by Brazilian rules it is a matter of days before I can practice.  Nevertheless, I can research my own dog's problems.

Reading the ingredients of the dog food produced some interesting surprises. Here are the ingredients, translated from Portuguese.  There are three categories of dog food available in Brazil, these being adequate, more than adequate and substandard.  The following ingredients come from a quality feed.  Ground chicken  viscerae; whole gound maize; maize gluten; hydrolysed pig liver; chicken fat; dehydrated whole eggs. spray dried concentrated pig liver; sodium chloride (common salt); potassium chloride; citric acid; antioxidant (BHA and BHT); propironic acid (a volatile fatty acid which is a nutrient, and/or mould inhibitor); vitamin/mineral premix; choline chloride which is importante in metabolismo; sodium hexametaphosphate; mananoligosaccharides; probiotics (Bacillus subtilis); chondroitin sulfate; glucosamine sulfate; enzymatic additive; sepiolita; zeolyte; yucca extract. 

It raises interesting questions that I shall come to.

Parasitology Pages. Zica: An Emerging Disease

The economic importance of mosquitões cannot be overestimated.  Nor can their importance in human health. The Tropics are where much disease is concentrated due to their high levels of biological diversity.  This biodiversity is due to the diversity of habitats and ecosystems in the Tropics.  Much of Brazil is Tropical. Mato Grosso is one of the hottest states in Brazil.  It is one of the richest, being a state whose wealth is built on agribusiness. It also has habitats including Tropical rainforest, cerrado, campo limpo, campo sujo and the Pantanal wetland, a World Biosphere Reserve, RAMSAR Site and National Park.

It is not the biodiversity or the habitats that is the health profession's focus in the context of mosquito-borne diseases, but rather the sanitary management of its urban áreas, I am a British biologist living in Cuiabá and am a Veterinary Surgeon.  Having been born and bred in NorthWales and subsequently spent time in Mauritius, Israel, the Seychelles and Malaysia before settling here, I am familiar with tropical living and the precautions necessary to live happily and healthily in the Tropics.  The vírus Zika has come to my attention recently because it has affected me directly.

Your body aches at the joints and you come out overnight in a rash.  The rash looks like flesh-coloured pinheads.  These break out all over your body.  Your eyes ache and turn red.  There is no medicine.  The rash may pass after 48 hours.

It is spread by the mosquito Aedes aegypti. For classification, see below.  We have insect-repelling electrical devices plugged in around our home now.  Because the insect is active during the day, mosquito nets don't help.  Wear long-sleeved, white shirts and trousers, socks and comfortable shoes. Wear strong insect repellent.

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Arthropoda
Class Insecta
Order Diptera: the two-winged flies
Sub-order Nematocera
Family Culicidae: the mosquitões
Genus Aedes
Species Aedes aegypti.

Municipal health inspectors visit residences in Cuiabá from time to time to make sure there is no standing water on properties.  It is in standing water that the mosquito breeds.

Hot Tip - How to Weigh Your Puppy

For the last several hours and days I have been concerned about my new Siberian Husky.  We live in the tropics and I am a firm believer in acclimatisation.  That animals' lineages can adapt to new climes within reason. 

I am an experienced dog owner but the Siberian Husky breed is new to me.  I was concerned by Bela's apparent lack of thriftiness - her apparent failure to thrive.  This struck me earlier today.  Since then I have weighed her several times and fed her three meals. 

Each time I have gone to weigh her it has been difficult.  Or fun, depending on your mind frame. She is just over two months old and very wriggly.  This is because I have been putting her in a large plant pot to weigh her.  The scales I use are modified flat-topped kitchen scales that I used to use to weigh my hawks.  Obviously, being an intelligent breed and naturally curious Bela kept wanting out of the black, opaque plant pot.  Then I had an idea. On the floor by my feet was an old fridge-freezer drawer. The type that is white and very wide-gauge mesh.  From a puppy's point of view she could see the 'ground' and her surroundings but she had to really concentrate on literally keeping her feet on the ground - the top of the weighing machine.  And that was the solution.

The first time in the drawer she put her leg through the mesh.  I extricated it, she resettled and then kept all four paws on the balance long enough for me to note the weight.

And that is one way to weigh your puppy.  Until next time.

How to Train a Puppy

Since my last blog on this subject I have changed my care approach. My Siberian Husky puppy has adapted well to its new home.  I am using a combination of approaches to her training. One of the best books on the subject is The Thinking Dog by Fisher. There is a surprising, not to say pleasing,  amount of animal ethology (behaviour) and psychology theory in it.  There are various approaches to training, and one of the most fun and effective is clicker training. I have decided that I was doing an awful lot at once in the first week.  One thing I have changed is that I have cut back on the food rewards.  Instead, I use other forms of positive reinforcement.  I use praise and play. Bela (Portuguese for 'beautiful') has now learned to sit and she does this on command. I have been wondering what to teach her next according to what suits my purposes.  I admit to being stuck between "sit" and "lie down".  I once read a book on training sight hounds for falconry.  One lesson I drew from that was that the most important command is "stay".  You want to be able to control your dog at all times.  Teaching your dog to stay is obviously vital to keeping it under control.

And as for the fun stuff.  Bela loves ice cubes in her drinking water.  And she loves having her teeth cleaned.  This is something I learned at vets' school!  I clean her teeth three times a day, ie after each meal.

That's all for today. More soon.

Postscript.  Three weeks in to her training and it has had to be suspended.  She has learned to 'sit';  As to other commands, well, 'lie down' and stay remain high priorities.  Why?  Because I am watching her health very closely.  She may have gastrointestinal tract problens or nephrological, that is, kidney, problems.  Tomorrow I receive the results of her haematocrit, that is, blood test results.  She has been unthrifty of late, that is, not putting on weight or eating.  So a much-anticipated day tomorrow, 

What and How to Train Your New Puppy in the First Week

Can a Siberian Husky live in the Tropics?  Yes it can.  We have just acquired a new puppy aged six weeks old.  It was the naturalist Gerald Durrell who said that if na animal is ‘happy’ it will breed.  ‘Happy’ may be anthropomophic and therefore not entirely the right word to use, but you get my drift. 

As for domestic species (Durrell was speaking in the context of wildlife), there is something called acclimatisation.  This is where a domestic species adapts to a new climate.  Acclimation is the process of adapting to a new environment.  Huskies have done both.

What should you teach your new puppy, husly or otherwise, and how?  Begin by teaching it its name.  Do that by repeating the name to the animal.

I then decided to teach my puppy to sit.  I am using clicker training and positive reinforcement.  A clicker can be bought on-line or at a good pet shop.  It works by shaping the behaviour you want from your pet.  Each time it demonstrates a desired behaviour you click your clicker.  When the dog produces the desired outcome, you give the reward.  This can be lavish praise or a food reward. 

One of the problems your puppy may encounter is diarrhoeia.  This is apt to occur due to a change of diet.  If you got your pup from a source other than a recognised breeder, then the diet the pup was used to may not be the best. Here in Cuiabá I have learned that there are three categories of pet food.  These are poor-quality, adequate and overpriced.  Even being bilingual and a Veterinary Medicine graduate, at the point of sale I still have to look carefully at the ingredients to find the food that is right for my pet. Over the past few days I have begun the process of changing diets.  Today my husky, Bela, ate three types of food: the low-quality one from the previous breeder, the better-quality one that I am switching her to, plus a few titbits of reward beef during her training session.  20 minutes later she defaecated diarrhoeia on the lawn. I view this as inevitable, and trust she will be well again soon.

Home Security. Dog or Burglar Alarm: Which is Best?

My neighbour was burgled recently.  This set me off on a path to thinking about having a dog again.  I am no novice to dog-keeping nor training.  I felt doubt only over whether or not to have a burglar alarm fitted and to take other security measures. 

The conclusion after a few minutes’ internet search regarding what was best, burglar alarm or dog, was that a burglar alarm and other electronic ant-theft devices were preferred by the insurance companies, and a dog may be seen as a liability.  Especially if it bites somebody.  Plus I would feel awful.  The problem is that internet advice leans overwhelmingly to an American context.  Here in Central Western Brazil it is diferent for me.  Because most people feel reluctant, even embarrassed, about speaking English, I feel an obligation to stick to Portuguese, even though I am British (Welsh, though non-Welsh speaking, regrettably).

As you may have noticed, life is complicated.  The burglar alarm man and electric fence-erector and CCTV maintainer are the same person. But he is hard to reach. He installed the CCTV together with another bod.  I was then reassured that his assistant would always be available 24/7 in case of queries, or words to that effect.  Of course, he was never heard of for seen again.  As for the Main Man, he has two mobiles and never answers them.  People around here ofte only give you their mobile number for the excellent reason that the have no fixed offce land line. Plus I cannot understand the language of security systems.  I write it down and am very conscientious in trying to understand, but very often the advice is wrong or the product is very poor quality or I simply don’t understand or something else happens and the pursuit of the maintenance man falls into abeyance for three weeks until I have to ask Mrs Beaumont

 

“What’s the situation with Joe Blogs the security expert/  When is he coming around to fix the electric fence?”

It can get you down.  Even if you are the type of person who thrives oin challenges. So I decided to get a dog.  I feel I am not a spontaneous person and I like to think I weigh up the pros and cons of an idea. But I like dogs and spend hours alone (despite being a sociable and very well adjusted person) and don’t mind cleaniing up after them and enjoy training them.

So I decided to go ahead. I looked at an advertising web site and made choice.  And more on that to come.

The End of Vets' School

If you refer back to early blogs that I wrote you will see that I was at the beginning of my final (clinical) year at Vets' School.

The final semester was the best of the lot.  December was a whirlwind.  But an enjoyable one,  I spent it writing up my final project, the Trabalho de Conclusão do Curso.  It was on the physical parameters of wildlife.  I carried out 46 physical examinations,  The most spectacular species I examined was a Jaguar cub and two Ocelots. The rarest species was an Azara's Owl Monkey, All of which I wrote about on this blog. I didn't write about the physiological parameters of these species, but other matters which excited me, like if the species was rare or endangered or cute.

You can imagine my anxiety on this course.  Previously I had studied biology and I can tell you there is no comparison.  Veterinary medicine is far more in-depth. I came out of it definitely feeling that I had been taught in order to pass exams.  I must have had to live with the nail-biting pressure of hundreds of exams over the years.  Add to that the pressure of studying in a foreign langauge, and nursing a chronically ill son and having to live with the uncertainty of not knowing whether he would recover, along with a tumultuous marriage and you have a recipe for the need for tranquilisers.

The hardest part of the course was having to check and recheck instructions with professors to make sure I had understood homework tasks. I could never be quite certain I had understood everything.  Right to the end I never submitted essas with the house-style front page.  This uncertainty continued right until the end.

On 15th December I went in for the second to last time. This was to give a presentation and since I love public speaking and have given many talks I enjoyed the experience,  Several friends had turned up to watch - this event was open to the public. Then I was asked if I wanted them present for the panel interview when I would be asked questions about the content of my TCC. Though I didn't mind - I am a compassionate person, I thought they would find it boring and - because I am a compassionate person, said they could leave.  Later one of my friends said he could not belive that I had been in there for an hour.  I answered questions and eventually lapsed into paroxysms of coughing.  It was a stressful hour.  Then I had to step outside for a few minutes while the panel decided whether or not I had qualified as a vet.  A few minutes later I was called back in and congratulated on qualifying.

I had to go home and correct my TCC - a simple task supposedly, but then my tutor said he wanted to see it again before I handed it in.  I sent it to him, the final copy, with a sense of trepidation - would this never end? I later submitted the final copy at the Veterinary Hospital on CD as per instructions.  And walked away on Thursday 17th December a qualified veterinarian.  And the only British veterinárian in Brazil, to my knowledge.