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November is pet cancer awareness month
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According to the Veterinary Oncology and Hematology Center, cancer accounts for almost half of all disease-related pet deaths and the cause of cancer is widely unknown. The Veterinary Cancer Society provides a few warning signs to look for such as persistent, abnormal swelling, sores that don’t heal, weight loss, loss of appetite, offensive odor, and difficulty breathing, urinating or defecating and bleeding or discharge from any body opening.
If you purchase a pet, avoid pets from puppy or kitten mills, where they are mass-bred. Avoid over-vaccinating, find one vet clinic you like and stick with it, especially when your pet is a kitten or puppy or elderly, this prevents you from having to be the sole keeper of the health records so the same vet (or different vets, but in a multi-vet clinic) can see which vaccines your pet has received. Discuss the pros and cons of yearly vaccines. Sarcomas have been well documented from over vaccination in cats, usually the feline leukemia shot, but you don’t want your pet to be unprotected. Each animals' life is different; inside, outside, multi-pet household, etc. There has been a new vaccine that was created to reduce and possibly eliminate sarcomas from the FELV vaccine in cats. I know it under the brand name of VetJet, it is an inter-dermal transmission, which has proven to be more effective at delivering the vaccine and just started to be used in the clinic where I worked in mid 2008. It may be a little scary the first time your vet uses it on your cat, and you should expect your cat to hiss or jump off the table, but it is not so much the pain the cat is reacting to as the noise. Remember, your vet has to keep up with continuing education courses and when a new product like this comes out, vets go to conferences and discuss this with many other vets and scientists. Your vet should discuss the pros and cons of using something new like this, or staying with the regular needle injection of the vaccine.
Of course, chemicals and toxins around the home can become a danger for cancer, chemicals such as lawn fertilizers or household detergents. Remember to use these products as recommended and if it doesn’t say how to use the product around your pets, call your vet and ask. If your vet can’t answer your specific question call the company that manufactures the product. If they don’t know how to answer your question, you would be safer to return the item for your money back and check the labels on other brands or alternative methods. On the web I searched pet cancer awareness month and stumbled upon http://www.petcancerawareness.org , this website has a lot of good information and also on the right hand side of the page (as of 11-6-09) there is a link you can click to help fund research of pet cancer if you choose. I am sure there are many out there, check it out, November is Pet Cancer Awareness month so you should get plenty of hits right now just using your regular search engine.
Happy Holidays, and keep your pet safe!
