• Slumping economy puts crimp in pet care




Veterinarian Linda Wallace keeps an apparently serene golden retriever named Bo current on his vaccinations at the Sunset Animal Medical Center in Fair Oaks on Monday. Another local vet says there has been a 15 to 20 percent decline in the last year in the number of pets kept current on checkups and vaccinations.


Pet owners are reportedly doing more comparison shopping and using credit cards to get care. They're also delaying some procedures.

For Christine Eide, raising Welsh Pembroke Corgi dogs is not a moneymaker. It's more like a debt-maker.

Even though veterinary bills and show-ring expenses cost her $10,000 last year – and she's discounted a remaining puppy to half price because of the economy – she won't cut corners on their care.

"I would not skimp on giving them their shots and what's needed," said Eide, who lives in El Dorado County.

Shots and genetic testing of all the puppies she sells give new owners peace of mind, she said.

The economic downturn could be giving some pet owners pause when it comes to veterinary care, delaying checkups and vaccinations for what could be deadly, contagious diseases.

A spokesman for the American Veterinary Medical Association, based in suburban Chicago, said studies have shown that people will neglect themselves before they deny their pets. Still, some member veterinarians lately have noticed a drop-off in visits, said Thomas McPheron, the spokesman for the group representing 85 percent of the country's veterinarians.

Jay Griffiths, a Fair Oaks veterinarian who owns five clinics in the Sacramento area, has seen a 15 to 20 percent decline since last year in the number of patients who are current on annual checkups and vaccines.

Those who own exotics even choose euthanasia rather than pay for pricey treatment, said Marianne Brick, whose Fair Oaks veterinary practice includes small animals and exotics, such as lizards.

Pet owners are doing more comparison shopping, using credit cards, cajoling parents for financial help and delaying procedures such as spaying and neutering, she said.

"They'll come in and say, 'I have $50 in my pocket. What can you do?' " she said.

Griffiths said there's reason for concern.

"It only takes one contaminated dog to expose hundreds," he said.

Cats also must be vaccinated against rabies, upper respiratory diseases and feline AIDS.

It's difficult to link any economic slowdown with an increase in diseases because a lot of them – unlike rabies, a relatively rare disease – are not tracked, veterinarians say.

But Griffiths has noticed an uptick in dogs with parvo, a virus that attacks the gastrointestinal track and is easily transmitted by contact with dog feces. Likely infections can come from dog parks or shelters, anywhere a lot of dogs congregate from different backgrounds.

Common symptoms are diarrhea and loss of appetite, which could result in death in puppies or dogs with compounded health problems. All are preventable with an effective series of routine vaccines, Griffiths said.

He suggests a series of vaccines beginning at six or seven weeks, then every three weeks, with a final after four months and an annual booster.

The vaccine is highly effective and can save a pet owner a lot of money in the long-run, said Kate Hurley, a veterinarian at University of California, Davis, and director of the Koret Shelter Medicine Program. "It could be the most important vaccine of their lives," she said.

Hurley has seen more cases of parvo, but the lack of tracking makes it difficult to accurately know what's going on beyond the grapevine.

Rabies vaccines, required by California law, should be given at four months, then a year and then every three years, she said. Even though rabies is a rare disease, don't consider skipping the vaccines, Hurley said.

The most important expense is an annual checkup, which will catch small problems before they become big, expensive ones, said Gina Spadafori, a nationally syndicated pet columnist in Sacramento.

After Sept. 11, the pet industry braced for a downturn, believing pet owners would refrain from spending on pets, she said. They didn't.

"Pets have been amazingly recession-proof," said Spadafori, who has also written a dozen books on pet ownership. "During hard times, you want to stay home and snuggle. And who is going to be there but your dog or cat?"

• Cop gives Robla girl a kitten after she loses pet to pit bulls



The sight of a cat's bloody carcass – and the tears of its mourning family – just about broke Sacramento Police Officer Balwant Jagur's heart.

It was the sad setting he stepped into in the early morning hours of Oct. 23, when Becky Hildebrandt called police to her Las Animas Circle home in Robla. She had been awakened at 3 a.m. by the sound of two stray pit bulls tearing apart her garage.

They also tore apart her 10-year-old daughter's cat.

"It was horrible," Hildebrandt remembered this week. She was so hysterical, she said, that dispatchers couldn't understand what she was calling to report.

"(The mother and daughter) were really distraught over the whole thing," said Jagur, 29, who works graveyard patrol in the city's north end.

At his own home, Jagur had six 8-week-old kittens in need of a home. So he offered one to Hildebrandt, who later said she was hesitant to accept after the loss of Little Ben had caused so much trauma.

She also wasn't so sure he'd actually follow through.

But true to his word, Jagur returned home and picked out his most handsome kitten, a black-and-white cat with a marking like a mask. He returned to the Las Animas Circle home the next day and dropped off the kitten.

He hoped the gift would bring a "little more joy to their life."

Hildebrandt said the kitten is a happy addition. Her daughter has become very protective of her new friend, which she calls Scooby.

"But I call it Chubby Bunny," Hildebrandt said, "because it's getting fat."

• UC Davis researchers link genetics to Dalmatian illness




A gene mutation causes bladder issues for some Dalmatians, UC Davis scientists have found.

Scientists at University of California, Davis, have discovered a gene mutation responsible for causing bladder problems in Dalmatians, a finding that may help researchers uncover clues to the cause of similar problems in humans.

The team of UC Davis researchers found that a gene mutation causes high levels of uric acid and bladder stones in some Dalmatians, a defect that is particular to the breed, a university news release states.

The findings were published last week in the scientific journal "Public Library of Science."

The defect was "probably unintentionally introduced as breeders worked to select more distinctive spotting patterns," veterinary geneticist Danika Bannasch, the lead author on the study, said in the release.

The trait can be removed from the breed by crossing Dalmatians with the normal offspring of the original Dalmatian-pointer breeding of the early 1970s, she said.

The university's Veterinary Genetics Laboratory will offer DNA testing for the mutation in dogs beginning Dec. 1.

While all mammals excrete waste in their urine, only humans, great apes and Dalmatians produce elevated levels of uric acid in their urine and blood. In humans, high levels of uric acid can result in kidney stones, hypertension and gout. In Dalmatians, high levels can result in bladder stones, which have to be removed surgically.

To conduct their research, the UC Davis scientists collected DNA samples, as well as urine samples, from hundreds of dogs to identify the gene responsible for high levels of uric acid.

"In recent years, dogs that are about 99 percent Dalmatian and 1 percent pointer have been bred, successfully eliminating the elevated uric acid trait," Bannasch stated in the release. "The result is a healthy dog that looks like a Dalmatian, maintains the Dalmatian breed characteristics and is genetically almost identical."

The "backcrossed" dogs have been registered as Dalmatians with the United Kennel Club and offer a resource for correcting the genetic defect.

The study was funded in part by a fellowship from the Morris Animal Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

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