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Could your cat have high blood pressure?

High blood pressure is a common problem for humans but did you know that cats can get it too? High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is actually quite common in older cats, especially those with other diseases such as kidney disease or hyperthyroidism. The symptoms can be quite subtle or mimic those of other diseases so many cases remain undetected for quite some time. If left untreated, however, hypertension can lead to significant secondary health problems, so it’s definitely worth testing for.

What exactly is high blood pressure?

High blood pressure occurs when the pressure within the blood vessels exceeds a certain threshold. Think of the hosepipe used to water your garden. If you turn the tap on too strongly, the water shoots out of the nozzle uncontrollably, damaging your flowers. The same is true for the body – organs like the brain and kidneys need blood to survive but if the blood pressure gets too high….

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Killing badgers: a necessary evil or the unwarranted destruction of a scapegoat?

Badgers are at the centre of one of the biggest rural controversies of our time.

On the one hand, many farmers  see them as disease-carrying pests that need to be controlled in the same way as urban dwellers control rats, with poison, traps or guns.

On the other hand, animal lovers see them as benign, harmless characters, going about their own business, and certainly not “guilty” enough to deserve death.

How can there be such a huge gulf between these opposing views? Is there a central “truth” that we can all agree about?

It is true that badgers can spread TB to cattle

There are some definitive facts. Bovine Tuberculosis (TB) is a complex disease which needs to be controlled to maintain the UK’s international animal health reputation. Control measures include improved on-farm hygiene, accurate identification of cattle, records of animal movement, regular testing of cattle by vets, and unfortunately for badgers, strict control of wildlife that can carry TB.

You see, there is no doubt that badgers can carry TB.

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Grazia: fashion news, beauty tips and terrible advice about breeding pets

Grazia is an Italian women’s magazine, first printed in 1938 when it was modelled on the USA magazine, Harper’s Bazaar. At the time, it was said to focus on traditional family values, such as cooking and child rearing. In recent years, the magazine has expanded its frontiers, now having over twenty international editions, including a British edition which started in 2005, and had a circulation of over 160000 by 2013.

So why is a vet writing a blog about a women’s magazine? Well, in the latest UK edition, Grazia has taken an ill-judged foray into the world of pet breeding. The magazine includes a feature on easy ways to earn extra income, with someone called “Ella”, said to be an estate agent, enthusing about the ease with which she makes extra cash by breeding her Ragdoll cat and Shih Tzu dogs. “Ella” seemed to give lip service to the idea of responsible breeding, saying “You want healthy animals or you get a bad rep. If you think Netmums is bad, you haven’t seen how bitchy pet forums are!”…

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Ask a vet online – is there a test for Leptospirosis?

Berry Wilkinson asked:

I was wondering if you can titre test for leptospirosis? Or is it only useful when you are testing sick dogs? Thanks.


Hi Berry, thanks for your question about testing for Leptospirosis. To answer it, I’ll briefly discuss Leptospirosis as a disease, then talk about the different diagnostic techniques available. Finally, I’ll discuss vaccination and the implications for diagnosis.

What is Leptospirosis?

Leptospirosis (“Lepto”) is a disease caused by bacteria of the genus Leptospira. There are more than 300 strains (technically called serovars) of the bacteria. In the UK, Leptospira icterohaemorrhagiae and L. canicola used to be the most common, but since widespread vaccination against these has started, it is now thought that L. interrogans and L. kirschneri may be more important.

The disease is transmitted by body fluids of infected animals, including rats. The symptoms of Leptospirosis in dogs include:

Fever and sore muscles.
Loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhoea and dehydration.
It may cause kidney or liver failure
Sometimes the only symptom is sudden death.
Infected dogs may shed the bacteria in their urine for months or years without showing any clinical signs.
Leptospirosis is highly zoonotic – i.e. it is a high risk pathogen for infecting humans.
How is Leptospirosis diagnosed?

There are four methods to test for Leptospira in clinical samples, of which two are clinically useful. They are:…

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Ask a vet online – my dog has skin allergies, how do I help?

Question from Leona Poppleton:

my dog has skin allergies and so gets very dry skin and sometimes scabs that look quite painful is there anything that I can get or do to help this?

Answer: Scabby Skin

Hi Leona, thanks for your question about your dog’s skin. Allergies with skin symptoms are pretty common in dogs, so I’ll briefly discuss allergic disease, then go on to some of the many different treatment options.

What are skin allergies?

The phrase “skin allergies” refers to the itching, scratching and sore skin that allergic dogs get. However, it doesn’t have to be caused by something on the skin – e.g. food allergies (although quite rare in dogs) can lead to skin symptoms – so “allergic skin disease” is a better term.

Essentially what is happening is that the dog’s immune system misidentifies a harmless substance as a dangerous threat, and tries to attack it, causing soreness and itching. Allergic reactions may be triggered by a wide range of substances such as pollen, certain foods, fleas, mites, plants or even some washing powders. In a large number of cases, there’s no specific “allergy” involved, but the dog has a disease called Atopy (or Atopic Dermatitis), where the immune system reacts abnormally to a wide range of different stimuli. Atopy is partially genetic, and is more common in some breeds (e.g. West Highland White Terriers).

How is it diagnosed?

It is important to get allergic skin disease properly diagnosed by your vet because there are many contributing factors and different underlying problems….

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Communicating with pets: body language versus speaking English

One of the biggest challenges for vets is our lack of ability to have conversations with our patients. This isn’t always a huge problem: for example, if a dog has a broken leg, or a cat has an abscess, the problem is very easy to identify just by examining the patient. But we could still learn useful information from a verbal discussion. I would like to ask “How painful is it?”, or “Which cat attacked you?”. Treatment would also be easier to give if we could give our patients verbal instructions, such as “You must not chew this plaster cast off” or “You must let your owner bathe the sore area twice daily”.

Pain is a specific area where communication would be particularly useful….

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The Hay Festival is not a place where you might expect to learn about the treatment of animals: it’s an annual literature festival held in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales, for ten days at the end of May every year.

Caroline Ingraham has written an interesting book – “How animals heal themselves” –  which is presumably the reason she was given the opportunity to give an account of her subject at the Hay Festival last week. The BBC have created a podcast from her talk,  but I believe that the editors were wrong to give her this uncritical forum to propagate her views. Caroline has a controversial belief in the ability of animals to choose their own medicine. There’s nothing wrong with her having these beliefs, but there is a problem when her views are broadcast without any “public health warning”. There is a serious risk that animals could suffer unnecessarily if members of the public follow her advice to the letter….

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Do vets charge too much for bitch spays?

As part of my work as a “media vet”, I’m a strong advocate for spaying and neutering pets as the best way to control the problem of pet overpopulation. Accidental pregnancies still account for a high number of unwanted puppies and kittens, and routine spaying/neutering of young adult pets is the best way to prevent these. This doesn’t meant that every pet needs to be spayed/neutered when young (there are some good reasons to delay or even not to do the operation for some individual animals), but it does mean that every pet owner should at least discuss the options with their vet around the time of puberty.

Why do people refuse to have their pets spayed?

People have a variety of reasons for not having the operations done on their pets, and the cost is a major factor. In a recent social media discussion, the following comment came in.

“Vets should reduce their fee to £120 for a female dog. A lot of people genuinely just can’t afford it.”

Why don’t vets reduce their fees?

This is a good point. Why don’t vets reduce the price of spaying?…

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Question from Andi Jane William:


Answer by Shanika Winters:


What is dandruff?



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Elizabethan Collars – a necessary evil?

One of my clients was talking about his recently neutered bitch today. “She needs one of those Victorian Buckets” he said. I knew what he was talking about, but his terminology was not quite correct. The problem was that his bitch had been licking her operation wound, and he wanted to stop her. The item he was describing is an important tool to assist the healing of animals’ wounds. It is more correctly called an ‘Elizabethan Collar’, because it resembles the white starched lace collars that Queen Elizabeth I and her subjects used to wear….

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