By its definition a geriatric patient is one that has lived 80-85% of its life expectancy. Given the average lifespan of a cat is around 16-17 years this means that the average ago of a geriatric cat is 14 years and that of a senior cat is 11 years of age. This might be a bit surprising to some of you! At Far North Vets we commonly get people in consultation who believe the reason their 6 to 9 year old cat isn’t doing well or is losing weight is due to old age! Something isn’

At Far North Vets and Pets in Kaitaia we recently got a timely reminder on the devastating effect of parvovirus. It was an all too common scene: young family with kids who had all become understandably attached to their new pet, good intentions of getting their puppy vaccinated but hadn’t gotten around to it and a nice well bred puppy on deaths door which unfortunately couldn’t be saved despite every effort made. If the family concerned thought they knew the risks of parvovir

Heart disease in cats and dogs is more common than we think. New Zealand now has a cat population of around 1.41 million and 700,000 dogs. We are seeing more money being spent on our animals than ever before and with that we are diagnosing more and more problems like heart disease than we ever have been able to in the past. Heart disease more often than not takes time to develop so quite often gets passed over as the animal ages. The specific signs associated with heart disea

A popular cartoon from the Simpsons and also a very common sight in pet owners homes in the Far North at this time of year! Seasonal allergies are a massive problem for dogs and cats in the Far North. Quite often these episodes of itching and scratching are blamed on fleas. This is true for some cases but not all. From my experience Contact allergies are the most common form of allergic skin problems I see in clinic. Causes of skin allergies include but are not limited to: *

At Far North Vets in Kaitaia a common and sometimes frustrating condition we see relatively often is an ear infection. Ear infections can be complex in nature and difficult to treat. Some dogs are more prone to ear infections than others: * Dogs with a lot of hair in the ear canals * Dogs with long floppy ears * Dogs that go swimming a lot * Dogs and cats who suffer from other allergies * Dogs and cats who fight a lot * Some breeds of dogs and cats will be born with ear canal