Animal Wellness Center at Concord Farm

06/26/2025

Amazing!!💖🐾🐶💖

A picture is worth a thousand words...image credit International Canine Behaviorists

06/24/2025

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I love that y’all wanna do right by your dogs. I LOVE that you want to bring them with you everywhere!!
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But here on the East Coast of the USA, it is *hot*hot*hot* making the risk of heat damage super high --
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My experience is that in an emergency situation, we humans often panic, and only remember bits and pieces of relevant info. This is the TL;DR: dog too hot = cool quickly!!!
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I am no different from you. When one of The Terriers is injured, or acutely sick, I can hear my brain flushing like a toilet. That’s when I Phone A Friend….
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Here I am - your Friend on a Phone!! Ain’t social media neat?
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First, please remember that most people UNDERESTIMATE the negative effects of heat on their dogs. Walking around on a hot summer day, I see many dogs showing clear signs of heat stress:
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Panting, tongue out, flaccid/flabby = overheating
Panting, tongue out, flattening at the end = heat stress; danger zone
Panting, tongue out, flat end, edges curling; watery, squinty eyes; Can drink, but not much = HEAT STROKE IMMINENT!
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Dogs DO NOT SWEAT, so while giving them water is of course necessary, it is just not going to cool them the same way it cools a human. The few sweat glands on their feet are not relevant at this point.
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Drinking ice cold water isn’t great for their system - it ain’t great for yours either, boss. Offer cool or room temperature water only.
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Dogs get rid of excess heat by panting - that is their ONLY INTRINSIC METHOD OF COOLING!
This means that brachycephalic breeds - smoosh-faced dogs like Pugs, Frenchies -- have their air conditioners permanently disabled.
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A Chihuahua is going to be much more heat tolerant, generally, than a Siberian Husky. The thick undercoat of Arctic and mountain breeds of dog insulates them for extreme low temperatures, and makes them much less tolerant of high temperatures.
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Heat Stress progresses to Heat Exhaustion then Heat Stroke when the dog is:
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Panting uncontrollably, cannot stop to drink much, if at all
Staggering, wobbly
Trembling which can progress to seizures
Limp, trouble standing, prefers to lay down
Vomiting
Passing loose, watery stools
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This is when Emergency Measures should be taken!!
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Immerse your dog in an ice bath, if that’s available to you quickly - like a cooler full of drinks at a party. Dump the beverages and immerse your dog.
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This will not cause organ failure. When a dog goes into multi-system organ failure after being cooled from Heat Stroke, the damage was done by the HEAT, not the cooling.
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Be aware, when I say immerse your dog in an ice bath, I don’t mean for you to leave them there for half an hour!! Dunk them, soak their fur to the skin, wait for them to stabilize, then take them out of the water and into A/C or a fan.
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This could be when you put your dog in an air conditioned vehicle, and transport to an emergency veterinary facility for medical care.
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Another thing I do not mean: do not spend precious time meticulously setting up an ice bath for your overheating dog. Use what is available to you: cold hose, pool, stream, lake, bottles of cold drinks (even if they aren’t water, just get the darn dog wet!).
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While you are soaking your dog to the skin, someone else is starting up the transport vehicle, and cranking the A/C. A third person could be calling area animal ER’s to find out who can provide emergent medical attention the quickest.
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CONDUCTION of heat, from the dog, to a body of cold water, is what cools a body the fastest. EVAPORATION of that water from their skin - not from their fur, from their SKIN! - is the most efficient way to reduce body heat.
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Do not waste time cooling veins on the neck or groin - cooling by evaporation works because it cools the SMALL VESSELS in the SKIN: the more skin is soaked, the more efficient the evaporative cooling.
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The best way to prevent permanent damage from heat stroke is to avoid heat stressing your dog in the first place. Pay attention to the weather, remembering that ANY dog is LESS heat tolerant than most humans.
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Humans drink water to support sweating, which evaporates from your skin, and cools you down. Your dog does not sweat! Manually wet them down with cool water to promote evaporative cooling. Do this prior to, and in the midst of, warm weather activity. Soak them to the skin, or it won’t help much.
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Stopping activity to give them water is helpful, but will NOT be sufficient in hotter temperatures. As a rough guide, let’s say anything over 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 Celsius) is definite cause for concern. I know many dogs who struggle when temperatures rise over 60F (15C).
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I hope this clears things up. Link to the blog page on my website to read more, get on my mailing list, debate the finer points of my complete idiocy.....whatevvuh.
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05/26/2025

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🎉 We’re Now Open! 🐾

After months of preparation, we are thrilled to announce that our doors are officially open! A heartfelt thank you to our incredible team for their dedication, compassion, and hard work through these first few days—we couldn’t have done it without you. Your commitment to excellence is already making a difference.

To our community: We are here for you and your pets when you need us most. At Cladda Veterinary Emergency, we provide urgent and emergency veterinary care with a focus on compassion, clarity, and collaboration. Whether it's late at night or over the weekend, you can count on us to be a trusted extension of your primary care veterinarian.

We’re honored to serve and support our local veterinary community and the families who love their animals so dearly. 💙

05/01/2025

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🤏 If your groomer is routinely expressing your dog’s a**l glands, it could be doing more harm than good.

In healthy dogs, these glands should empty naturally during bowel movements💩—not by force. Repeated squeezing can traumatize the delicate ducts, which can lead to chronic inflammation, scar tissue that can affect the gland’s proper function, and long-term damage.

Even worse, every manual expression carries the risk of introducing bacteria🦠 and triggering infection. Unless there’s a medical reason, it’s best to leave healthy glands alone.

But here’s the thing: when those glands don’t empty naturally - and you start noticing that fishy odor🤢 - it’s usually a sign there’s a deeper issue.

Without enough pressure during a bowel movement, those glands don’t empty like they’re supposed to — and that leads to inflammation, impactions, and in some cases, full-on infections.

What’s causing those mushy poops in the first place? Often, it’s a mix of:
🥦 Low-fiber diets
🍗 Food sensitivities (like chicken, beef, or dairy)
🦠 Gut microbiome imbalance
🤏 Routine expression at the groomer

If your dog is struggling with soft stool:�Add a small dose of slippery elm or psyllium husk to your dog’s meals — it can help bulk up stool and encourage the glands to empty on their own.

🥣 Start with ¼ tsp for small dogs and increase up to 1 tsp for large breeds, based on size. Always introduce slowly, and always ensure plenty of hydration!💧

This Sunday at 12pm EST, we’re unpacking everything you need to know about a**l gland health — and how to fix it. We’ll cover home remedies, anti-inflammatory supplements, and Dr. Becker’s protocols for infection, impaction and more! PLUS all of the information from this episode, with dosages and recipes, will be available in a downloadable PDF on the Inside Scoop group page!

👉 Comment SCOOPERS and we'll message you the link to join Inside Scoop, a Planet Paws monthly subscription group, where all live podcasts are available to watch at any time. Plus, over 5 years of content including: past live podcasts, interviews, ebook downloads, and more!

04/15/2025

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04/05/2025

From the wildlife center

4/8/25 update: This fox's rabies testing has now come back negative (along with multiple other tests) and brain tissue samples have again confirmed HPAI suggesting that HPAI is the primary cause of the clinical signs this fox was exhibiting.

This past Monday, we admitted an adult female Red Fox from Hamilton, Virginia and she tested positive for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI).

This animal was lateral on intake and not responding to handling. She was also exhibiting tremors and nystagmus, a rhythmic, involuntary eye movement that is often seen with brain trauma or disease. Given these severe neurological signs without any indication of trauma, our top differentials were rabies, distemper, and HPAI. As all of these diseases have a very poor prognosis, humane euthanasia was elected and testing was performed for rabies and HPAI. While rabies testing is still pending, the HPAI testing came back positive.

This is the first report of an HPAI positive mammal in our state (though most other states have seen many mammalian positives, especially in dairy cows and free-roaming domestic cats). With cases on the rise at our hospital, and foxes having been found positive in multiple nearby states, this case did not come as a surprise. This positive was of course reported to the proper authorities and those that came into contact with the fox are actively monitoring for HPAI signs, which include fever, body aches, and irritated eyes in humans.

Please help us minimize the risk of this virus by keeping a respectful distance from wildlife. Most cats are infected by hunting wild prey or ingesting raw meat or milk, so please do not allow pets to free roam and do not feed raw milk or meat products. Keep yourself safe by avoiding these products as well. Please read the press release from DWR (linked in the comments) to learn more about this virus and how to stay safe.

This virus is still considered low risk to humans and there is no need to be concerned as long as you are staying up to date on the outbreak through reliable sources and taking proper precautions around wildlife and susceptible domestics.

03/10/2025

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