Welcome to the latest AlphaPet Newsletter.
You may either view this online as a web newsletter or you can click on the link and download the published newsletter here AlphaPet Newsletter November 2009
AlphaPet News
AlphaPet Relaunches Pet HealthCare Plan
In these times of financial pressures, it is perhaps a rather fortunate coincidence that AlphaPet has decided to relaunch its Pet HealthCare Plan. The Pet HealthCare Plan allows you to budget more easily for the routine healthcare needs of your dog or cat as well as saving you money not just on vaccines and wormers, but also on a rage of other products just because you are a member of the HealthCare Plan.
The way it works is that you simply select the healthcare plan that is right for the size of your dog or cat. You then sign up and agree to pay 12 monthly payments by direct debit. This entitles you to receive your routine booster vaccination together with 3-monthly worming treatments, monthly flea treatment and a FREE 6 monthly check-up, which is equivalent to around a 10% discount compared to paying for these treatments separately in the surgery. In addition to all of this, you will also receive a 10% discount on all over the counter products, (including diet foods but excluding online sales), all dental surgery and a 20% discount on microchip identification.
Take a look at the table below to see the savings you can make by joining this scheme. Direct Debit Monthly Payment
Small Cat (1-4kg) £8.00
Large Cat (>4kg) £9.35
Small Dog (<11kg) £8.00
Medium Dog (11-25kg) £9.25
Large Dog (>25kg) £10.75
If you would like to join the scheme, please ask at any AlphaPet reception and we shall be pleased to help you enrol.
Emergency Care Provision
Modern veterinary practices, like their human equivalents, are increasingly concentrating on providing healthcare advice and treatment to help keep animals healthy rather than just relying on treating sick patients. However, no matter how hard we try, we cannot prevent all animals getting sick and they don’t always do this during normal opening hours.
At AlphaPet, we believe strongly that emergency out of hours care is best provided by the same practice that you are normally registered with. This means that we have access to your patient’s clinical notes and the vet you speak to will often have personal knowledge of the patients they are treating.
There are increasing numbers of veterinary out of hours emergency clinics appearing which practices subscribe to so that their own staff do not have to provide veterinary services outside of normal hours. This can mean that clients often have to travel some distance to unfamiliar practices at times of great stress with very sick animals. Obviously access to that patient’s clinical records will often not be possible since it is an entirely separate private practice that is providing the emergency treatment. Further, it also means that patients needing to be hospitalised overnight or for protracted periods will have to be transferred to these same out of hours clinics. Finally, the fees charged at these dedicated out of hours clinics are often considerably higher than at a normal practice.
At AlphaPet, we do not believe that any of these factors are in the best interests of our patients or our clients and are merely designed to reduce the running costs of the daytime practices involved. We would like to assure our clients that we have no intention whatsoever of changing our current out of hours emergency cover arrangements meaning that you will continue to have 24/7 access to an AlphaPet vet for the care of all your pets
Please let us have your email address!
If we have your email address, we can send you this newsletter in colour straight to your inbox. This saves postage and printing costs as well as printing materials. Also, we can keep you informed of any specific health issues that may be likely to affect your pets including vaccination reminders Please note that these are the ONLY reasons we would normally contact you via email and your data remains protected under the Data Protection Act.
New AlphaPet Website
AlphaPet has a new and much improved website. If you have access to the Internet, why not check it out at www.alphapet.co.uk.
We have spent a good deal of time and effort adding to and improving our site to make it more user friendly and help it to become a genuinely useful additional service to our clients. And because of the way it is constructed, it is now much easier for us to keep it up to date so that it can become a genuinely useful information resource for our clients.
Of particular interest is the new Forum where clients can post questions about any topic related to pets and pet healthcare.
We also have a new Pet Gallery where you can post pictures of your pets. These can be for any reason; they could be funny, cute or in memoriam. It’s really easy to upload your pictures—just follow the instructions on the page.
Our brand new online shop should also appeal to many clients. In partnership with our wholesaler, we have been able to significantly discount a number of brands meaning that our online prices are often lower than local pet shops and even lower than many internet suppliers. You may be surprised at how much you can save! The way it works is that you simply order your goods online and they will be delivered to whichever AlphaPet surgery you specify ready for you to collect around 48-72 hours later. We even send you an email to confirm that your order has arrived and is ready for collection. Over the next few month, we will be rapidly exapnding the range of products offered rapidly over the next few months and if you can’t find a product that you need, just drop us an email and we will do our best to do so.
Suspected Resistance to Frontline
Throughout this last summer, we have received an increasing number of reports from clients suggesting that Frontline has started to become ineffective in controlling fleas on their pets.
Previously, many of these cases have turned out to be associated with incorrect usage of the product (eg not applying it correctly to the coat or not applying it as frequently as recommended by the manufacturers). However, the vets at AlphaPet have been unable to show that this has been the case in a number of instances and have begun to suspect that resistance may be starting to appear in the flea population. The manufacturers of Frontline, Merial, deny that they are aware of any resistance problem appearing . However, the vets at AlphaPet are not convinced and in order to ensure that we continue to be able to recommend reliable methods of all year round flea control, we have taken the decision to stop actively recommending Frontline. Instead, we now recommend alternative products to our clients for flea control on dogs and cats depending on the individual circumstances but all of which are highly effective.
If you have any queries or concerns about providing effective flea control for your pets, please contact us for further advice.
RCVS Practice Standards
Last year, AlphaPet was subjected to a formal Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons inspection as part of their Practice Standards Scheme (PSS). We passed with flying colours and are an officially Accredited Practice! PSS is a voluntary initiative and not all practices are part of it yet.
So what does it mean for you and your animals? As a client of an RCVS accredited practice, you can rest assured of the high quality of care throughout the practice.
Inspections are carried out every four years, although we can receive spot checks in between. Additionally, we must certify annually that we continue to meet the standards demanded by the RCVS.
Microchip Identification
Dogs and cats can get unexpectedly separated from their owners for many reasons. It is vital to have a permanent, secure method of identification if this happens.
AlphaPet regularly reunites lost pets with their owners, via microchip identification. However, all too frequently, lost pets are presented to the surgery with no form of identification at all. This can lead to a distressing delay in finding the owner or, worse still, the pet may never be reunited with their owner.
There have also been increasing numbers of reports of pets being stolen for re-sale, particularly pedigree dogs. Microchipping offers a quick, simple, reliable and cost-effective way to permanently identify your pet. Unlike collar tags, microchips cannot be lost or removed, and much more owner-contact information can be stored on the central computer database than on a tag.
Microchips are now available that will also read the animal’s temperature without the use of a conventional thermometer – particularly appreciated by cats and nervous dogs. AlphaPet also stocks catflaps that will read your cat’s microchip, and thus keep out those unwelcome neighbours!
We would advise all pets to be microchipped, including more unusual pets such as tortoises. If you would like to arrange for you pet to be microchipped please call the surgery. It only takes a few seconds, and is no more painful that a vaccine injection. If you bring this newsletter with you, we will even give you £5 off the cost!
Pet Insurance
In these times of economic uncertainty, it is important to ensure that your pets are protected against the unexpected costs involved should they become ill. Insurance is one way of doing this, although there are some pitfalls to beware of.
When you choose an insurance company, be careful to read all of the small print. It may not seem important when you are taking it out, but when you have paid out faithfully over the years and then have to make a claim only to find that something in the small print prevents you from getting your money back—that can be very annoying and expensive.
At AlphaPet, we always recommend that clients look for “For Life” policies. These are policies that will continue to cover chronic conditions for the life of your pet as long as you keep paying the premiums. Many of the cheaper policies have clauses which allow the insurance company to exclude conditions at the next renewal date which again can come as an unwelcome and costly surprise to the unwary client.
There is no free health service for pets so we recommend that all clients who take the responsibility for the health and welfare of their pets seriously, should make some financial provision for those unexpected emergencies.
“There have also been increasing numbers of reports of pets being stolen for re-sale, particularly pedigree dogs”
Did you know ….?
- In a typical room, 5 percent of the fleas will be found on pets, 10 percent flea cocoons in the carpets, 35 percent flea larvae and 50 percent flea eggs again in the carpets
- Fleas feed on blood but a flea can live without a blood meal for 100 days.
- A female flea has to have a blood meal to lay eggs. In addition, it lays eggs within 36-48 hours of having the first blood meal. A female flea can lay 2,000 eggs in her lifetime.
- Border collies are alleged to be the most intelligent breed of dog.
- Dogs can detect an upcoming epileptic seizure and can be trained to warn sufferers.
- Ailurophilia is the “love of cats.”
- The nose of a cat is ridged in a pattern that is unique, just like a human fingerprint.
- Tortoisehell cats are almost always female
- A rabbit can see behind itself, without turning its head, but has a blind spot in front of its face.
Is Your Pet Suffering In Silence?
Winter is the time when many of our pets start to feel the cold and damp in their joints. Most dogs over 8 years old are prone to arthritis, but many owners remain unaware of their discomfort because our pets don’t make a big fuss about it. Early signs can be just a slower dog with possibly some stiffness on rising that often gets better once they have got moving. In more advanced cases, there is often a more markedly stiff gait and they may be reluctant to jump up onto furniture or into cars. These animals are showing signs of pain and discomfort, even if they are not screaming out in pain.
So what can be done? Firstly, it is important to know that even mild cases of arthritis can benefit greatly from treatment and the earlier this is started the longer it will be before the disease becomes crippling. Weight loss combined with gentle exercise and massage can be very effective on their own. In addition, special diets (such as J/d diet) and joint supplements may also be useful in milder cases.
Finally, many pets can get great benefit from relief given by medication which helps reduce inflammation and pain.
If you suspect that your pet is showing signs of arthritis, don’t let them suffer in silence, come and discuss this further. There’s a good chance we can help you to help them!
More silent suffering?
When was the last time you checked your pet’s teeth? Do they look gleaming white the same as ours do?
If not, and particularly if there is reddening of the gums and there are significant brown deposits built up on the teeth, then this may be indicative of pain causing conditions.
As with many other chronic conditions in pets, they often don’t show any outward sign of pain. They just get on with life as best they can. Ask yourself when was the last time you had toothache which someone else noticed? Only when the pain gets too much to bear will pets stop eating, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been suffering in silence for some considerable period beforehand.
As vets, our primary goal is to prevent suffering in animals, so we would urge all clients to check their pet’s teeth regularly and if you are in any doubt, let us check them and advise accordingly.
