AVMA Convention Starts Friday In ChicagoJuly 16, 2013 The convention, which runs through July 23 at McCormick Place in Chicago, coincides with the AVMA’s 150th anniversary. Part of the anniversary celebration includes the traveling display "Animal Connections: Our Journey Together,” an interactive, truck-based exhibit designed to teach young people about science, animals, veterinary medicine and the human-animal bond. The exhibit will be open to conventioneers starting Saturday at the back of the Exhibit Hall before it moves July 23 to the nearby Museum Campus for three days of public viewing. The display later will travel to six Chicago parks before visiting New York City on Aug. 9. The trade show portion of the convention lasts three days, with nearly 300 exhibitors displaying their products and services in the Exhibit Hall. The hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday and 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday. Education is the overriding priority of the convention, and each hour of programming is worth one hour of CE credit for license renewal purposes. Two hours of CE credit is available for participating in the Exhibit Hall,
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Colorado State Veterinary Icon James Voss Dies At 79July 15, 2013James L. Voss, MS, DVM, a former Colorado State University administrator and for whom CSU’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital is named, died Friday at age 79 in Fort Collins, Colo., after a long illness.Dr. James Voss, who died July 12, 2013, served as dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences from 1986 until his retirement in 2001. Dr. Voss served as dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences from 1986 until his retirement in 2001. "CSU’s world is a little dimmer today for the passing of Dr. Jim Voss,” said university president Tony Frank, whom Voss hired as an assistant professor, department chair and associate dean. "It is no exaggeration to state that CSU’s veterinary medical program is a world leader in no small part because of Jim Voss. CSU lost a great leader and a great alum, and I lost a great friend.” Born in 1934 on a farm in Grand Junction, Colo., Voss earned his master’s and doctorate degrees from Colorado State. He went to work at CSU in 1958, first as an equine ambulatory clinician and later as an equine reproduction specialist and university administrator. …
Dogs, Owners Encouraged To Drop Pounds TogetherJuly 12, 2013 Dogs will shed more than hair in a new weight-loss program designed for both the animals and their owners.Banfield Pet Hospital is teaming with celebrity trainer Dolvett Quince of NBC-TV’s "The Biggest Loser” on a campaign that goes beyond walking and running. The Banfield Pet Hospital chain is teaming with celebrity trainer Dolvett Quince of NBC-TV’s "The Biggest Loser” on a campaign that goes beyond walking and running. The workout plan includes the Burpee, shuttle runs and the Plank Fetch, in which pet owners resting their forearms on the ground play fetch with their dog. Other activities are outlined at Banfield.com/fitness. "Overweight and obesity is weighing heavily on the minds of Americans and is impacting families across the country, including our four-legged friends,” Quince said. "Leading a healthy lifestyle is just as important for our pets as it is for humans.” Portland, Ore.-based Banfield’s latest State of Pet Health Report found that weight issues have increased by 37 percent in dogs and 90 percent in cats since 2007. "Just like with humans, restricting a pet’s caloric intake and increasing exercise are the keys …
Market For Veterinary Care Remains BrightJuly 12, 2013Spending on veterinary services is forecast to rise by 4.5 percent this year and 5 percent in 2014 in another sign of a rebounding U.S. economy, the market research firm Packaged Facts reported. Veterinary services made up 35 percent of pet industry sales in 2012, the largest piece of an estimated $59.1 billion pie. Overall, spending in the U.S. pet industry is expected to jump to $61.9 billion in 2013 and $64.9 billion in 2014, the Rockville, Md., research firm projected. Each segment of the pet industry is projected to grow at rates exceeding inflation, which the federal government estimates at about 2 percent annually. The spending increase is primarily the result of higher prices, not a significantly larger pet population, the report’s author, David Lummis, noted. Pets were in about 56 percent of U.S. households in 2011, according to separate studies prepared by the American Veterinary Medical Association and Simmons Market Research Bureau. While veterinary spending has rebounded over the past five years, to $20.9 billion in 2012, "that increase masks the fact that a slightly smaller percentage of pet …
San Diego Approves Store Pet Sale BanJuly 11, 2013 San Diego became the latest municipality to ban the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores when the City Council unanimously passed an ordinance Tuesday. The Southern California city is the 32nd U.S. city to enact such a ban, joining Los Angeles, which approved a similar measure. Starting Aug. 9, dogs, cats and rabbits sold in San Diego pet stores must come from one of the city’s municipal animal shelters, humane societies or rescue organizations. Violators could be fined up to $1,000. The effect will be limited because only two stores—Pet Market and San Diego Puppy—sell the banned animals, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The Washington, D.C.-based Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council opposed the legislation and "offered to work with the council to help raise the bar to ensure that only good breeders would supply pets,” said Charlie Sewell, PIJAC’s executive vice president of external affairs. "The council showed no interest in helping weed out substandard breeders,” Sewell said. When the law goes into effect, pet …
Texas A&M Vet Students To Assist Houston SPCAJuly 11, 2013 Texas A&M veterinary students will work alongside experts in animal cruelty, neglect and trauma in what is being called the nation’s largest shelter medicine program. The partnership between the Houston chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is partially funded by PetSmart Charities, the organizers announced today. Fourth-year veterinary students will rotate through a required two-week program at the Houston SPCA, exposing them to shelter medicine and animal welfare, including rescue and forensics investigations. They will work on animal cruelty, neglect and trauma cases involving dogs, cats and other companion animals, horses and donkeys, farm animals, exotic animals and native wildlife. "There’s no better way to gain immersive, hands-on experience than at a shelter such as the Houston SPCA, which sees over 26,000 animals per year,” said college dean Eleanor M. Green, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, Dipl. ABVP. The Houston SPCA investigates more than 9,000 cases of animal abuse and neglect each year. "The number of species the students will work with …
DirecTV Adds Canine TV ChannelJuly 10, 2013 DogTV, the first television network scientifically developed for dogs, will debut nationwide Aug. 1 on DirecTV channel 354 at $4.99 a month.DogTV offers canine-centric programming designed to capture and keep the attention of stay-at-home dogs. The canine-centric programming is designed to capture and keep the attention of stay-at-home dogs. "Many dog owners come home ... to find a sad pooch or a ripped-up couch,” said Gilad Neumann, CEO of the New York City company. "This likely results from separation anxiety, which is one of the most common behavioral issues for dogs that are left at home.” The channel has been available only in San Diego on the Cox and Time Warner cable networks and through the Internet and Roku streaming players. Veterinarians, dog trainers and animal behaviorists were consulted during the network’s four-year development, resulting in programming designed to appeal to a dog’s sense of sight, hearing and movement detection. In addition to relaxing and Pavlovian programming, DogTV offers content designed to desensitize dogs to stimuli such as babies, cars and fireworks that would …
Veterinary Practices Considering Payment OptionsJuly 9, 2013 A new couple turned up recently at Highland Animal Clinic in Mount Vernon, Wash., distraught about their 10-year-old dog. Roscoe had grown weak and emaciated, but another clinic had needed $500 upfront to start tests and hospitalize the animal–and the young family couldn’t scrape it together until payday, nine days away. Practice manager Jennifer Schubeck and her staff didn’t want the family to wait that long. They set the clients up on a payment plan, using their own in-house service set up through ExtendCredit.com, so treatment could start immediately. "Apparently, the dog had saved the life of one of the children in the family years ago, so they wanted to do whatever they could for him,” Schubeck said. "Ultimately, we weren’t able to save him, but the family was extremely grateful and has since transferred their other three pets to us, because we helped them in their time of need.” For many veterinary practices, offering financing options, including payment plans and installment-pay preventive health care plans, is not only a way to save animals and help clients. It’s a smart business decision that can also increase revenue …
When Pets Lose Their Sense Of PlaceJuly 9, 2013 Canine and feline cognitive dysfunction syndromes are degenerative brain diseases that are often missed until the signs become so advanced that it may be too late to help the pet or owner. "One of the greatest problems we have with cognitive dysfunction is the lack of awareness, not only on the part of the public, but on the part of the practicing veterinarians. They understand that it is out there, but they don’t appreciate how common it is,” said Jeff Nichol, DVM, a veterinary behavior practitioner at the Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Hospital in Albuquerque, N.M. "Veterinarians assume that the owner will tell them ‘My older dog is not acting the same’ during the course of an exam,” Dr. Nichol says. "But many pet owners assume the behavior changes are a normal part of aging.” A large 2011 study out of Australia bears this out. Researchers found that the overall prevalence of cognitive dysfunction was a little more than 14 percent, but only about 1.9 percent of cases are diagnosed. The same study found that the chances of having cognitive dysfunction increase with age, so that by the time dogs are 15 years old, 41 …
Too Many Indebted Veterinary Grads Chase Too Few JobsJuly 9, 2013 In the year 2023, veterinary medicine will appear very different from the way it is now. I have felt for some time that we are training too many veterinarians for the number of available job openings. This was confirmed by the AVMA Workforce Study released April 22. This study reported 12.5 percent excess capacity in the profession, which could continue through 2025. I have read for the past 25 years that we need to have veterinarians go into non-traditional fields. We now have veterinarians in many new and expanding areas--public health, epidemiology, shelter medicine, food safety, etc.--but still have the issue of low salaries as many of these new areas offer lower pay. Student debt continues to increase at a higher rate than starting salaries. We often compare veterinary medicine to human medicine to evaluate how we are doing. However, the two professions are vastly different once we get away from four years of training. Today there is a shortage of physicians, and the Association of American Medical Colleges projects this shortage to reach 90,000 by 2020. On the other hand, the number of veterinarians is adequate with a …
