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Daily Archives: August 20, 2020

Heartworm Symptoms in Your Pet: How to Recognize Them

It can be very heart wrenching to see your pet suffer unnecessarily from Heartworm disease. Heartworms are preventable and can be successfully treated if detected early. Unfortunately, many dogs will show little or no symptoms of infection even after the worms have morphed into their adult stages. Heartworms are spread by mosquitoes, which breed adult worms in the pulmonary artery, the lungs and sometimes the right side of the heart. Pet owners and even vets sometimes assume that heartworm symptoms are just run-of-the-mill coughs or gastric problems, and this can lead to fatality. The longer your dog has heartworm the greater the risk of heart, lung, pulmonary artery, liver, and/or kidney damage is. When heartworms are in their advanced stages, they have to be killed using one of the treatments available today, the most effective of which is melarsomine dihydrochloride, marketed under the brand name Immiticide.

However, killing heartworms can prove to be fatal to your pet. Dead worms can cause a blockage of blood vessels causing organs to fail. Older, sick, or pregnant animals may not be able to bear the treatment and some pets are generally sent home to die without care or put down, as treatment would have killed them anyway. Many heartworms are hosts to a bacterium called Wolbachia pipientis, which is released when the heartworm is killed. This can bring about further complications in your pet. The accepted way to deal with the potential threat of the bacterium is preventative measures, by the use of an antibiotic like Doxycycline. If the pets dog are suffering from anxiety and depression, then the selection of pets cbd pain anxiety medicine can be there. There is no threat of bacteria to the pet dogs to meet with the desired results. The solving of the health complications is there with the health benefits of the medication. 

There are several tell tale signs of heartworms that pet owners should look out for.

  • Loss is one of the main symptoms of heartworms in pets. Be observant of the amount of food that your dog consumes daily and take note of any decrease in the pet’s appetite or weight. While weight loss can be a symptom of many other pet ailments, it is also one of the primary symptoms of heartworms, and when detected, immediate action should be taken.
  • Take note of your pet’s general outward appearance. Observe if his breathing is labored and any possible protrusion or bulging of ribs, these can also be symptoms of heartworms, as the ribs try to adjust to the enlarged heart and internal organs.
  • Coughing and early exhaustion when exercising are also early indications of heartworms.
  • Lethargy is another all important sign to watch out for, especially if your pet is usually a ball of energy. If it becomes lethargic, starts sleeping more, slouches a lot, and is disinterested in activities then it would be wise to take the animal for a check-up.
  • Vomiting and diarrhea occur in the last stages when the disease has become chronic. If this too is ignored, the pet will eventually begin to experience bloody stool, jaundice, and poor coat condition, in which case, you must rush him to the vet’s as fast as possible.
  • Collapse – the final symptom is collapse and this usually means the animal has succumbed to his or her illness. When this happens it may just be too late to save your pet.

While any of these symptoms could be a sign of a different ailment, they should not be ignored and once observed, action should be taken as soon as possible.

While heartworms are most common in dogs, other animals such as cats and ferrets are also at risk. Even humans can be infected by heartworms. It is critical to identify heartworm symptoms in their early stages and seek treatment immediately. Cats in particular suffer much more than dogs when infected by heartworms, although statistically the chances of their being infected are 1 to 5 when compared with dogs. However, there are very few approved treatments in the US for heartworm in cats, and the prognosis is not definitive.

The wisest thing to do is to take preventative measures. There are ivermectin-based and moxidectin injections available for use as prophylactics. If you take your pet for this treatments once or twice a year, and deal with the mosquito problem as well, you should be fairly confident that your pet will stay free of heartworm disease symptoms.

Tips on Taking Great Puppy Portraits

We have just got our second Labrador puppy this year. Our last chocolate male Labrador Sam, we were shooting photographs with film. We lost most of his puppy pictures to a bad roll of film. Shooting photographs with digital now is much easier to get lots of great puppy pics.

My number one tip is shoot lots of photographs of your puppy. When they are puppies there is not too much time during the day when they are laying around waiting to have their picture snapped. I am watching my 14 week yellow pup grow everyday now. As dog owners we want to have lots of shots to look back on when they get bigger. So take lots of shots to make sure you capture those fleeting moments.

When they are not in motion they are usually sleeping. So my second tip is to run them around and get them a little tired before you shoot. They will be more likely to lay and chew on a stick for you’re when they have that energy run out a little prior to your session. You can get some of that products from https://www.sfweekly.com/sponsored/best-cbd-dog-treats-in-2020-buying-cbd-for-dogs/.

Next you want to get down to their level. This will mean you are going to have to lie prone on your stomach in order to get the shot. Shooting down on your pup will give you an interesting angle but you do not want all of your photographs from the same point of view. In order to get those calendar portrait shots you need to have the camera on the level of your subject. Unless your pup is on a bed or some furniture this means getting down on the floor or ground.

Next you want to fill the frame with your subject. This translates into either getting in close to your puppy or zooming in. Most of the time what you see on the lcd screen or through the view finder, with a digital camera, is about 80 to 90 percent of the whole image. If you leave too much space on the sides of your subject you will likely take the viewers attention away from the subject and have the subject smaller than you intended. Fill the screen with your subject and you will get some beautiful shots.

One of the golden rules of professional dog portrait photography is to make sure the eyes are sharp. This means you will focus on the eyes drawing the viewer’s attention to them. With autofocus mechanisms you will need to make sure you have the screen indicators on the eyes when shooting.

A more advanced tip is to use a shallow depth of field in your photograph. This will produce a shot that the subject, your pup, is in focus while the background is softly out of focus as not to distract from your subject. If you have a digital SLR camera this will mean using a smaller aperture by setting the aperture setting to 5.6 or below. If you are using a point and shoot camera you may have a portrait mode that will automatically do this for you.

  • get to your pups level

Most of all have fun; your pup grows way too fast and will be a big dog before you know it. Make sure you have lots of photos to look back on as you continue your journey with your dog.