Don't give your dog chocolate
Chocolate contains a chemical called
theobromine, which is harmless to humans but toxic
to dogs and causes vomiting, diarrhoea, convulsions
and even death. Cocoa powder is the most toxic chocolate
product to dogs, followed by dark and then milk chocolate.
Also, we should point out that cocoa
shell mulch - used around the base of indoor potted
plants to provide nutrients and keep weeds at bay -
is even more toxic than chocolate so it should not
be used in homes or gardens where dogs could eat it.
Dog bites
Special chocolate drops are available
from pet shops if you want to give your dog a chocolate
treat, but the best thing to do is to keep them on
their normal, balanced diet.
If you really want to treat your dogs
this Valentine's Day take them for a game in the garden
or a run around the park.
If you want to celebrate Valentine's
Day with a gift, why not consider arranging to have
your pet microchipped or take out lifetime pet insurance?
With these schemes the gift will benefit you too should
your pet go missing or become ill.
The unveiling of a unique
canine cancer screening, detection and treatment program
at the largest International Veterinary Conference
in the world, has proved to be a significant success.
Launched by an innovative British bioscience
company at the North American Veterinary Conference
(NAVC) in Orlando, Florida, the Petscreen Veterinary
Cancer program (www.pet-screen.com) attracted much
attention from the veterinary community in the United
States and around the world. In addition, key US market
partners expressed serious interest in taking up the
program to make it widely available in the US.
Petscreen’s founding partners,
Professor Graeme Radcliffe and Dr Kevin Slater are
sufficiently confident that an announcement will be
made at this year’s British Small Animals Veterinary
association (April 20th-23rd, 2006, National Indoor
Arena, Birmingham, UK).
Canine cancer is at the top of the veterinary
professions agenda across the world. In some breeds
cancer is endemic…. And since the recent sequencing
of the dog genome, there has been an active drive to
join up initiatives which will help to detect, and
treat cancer at a very early stage. The American Kennel
Club, The Morris Animal Foundation and a host of senior
animal oncologists have now flagged canine cancer as
having one of their foremost areas of attention.
The program developed by Petscreen is
the first of its kind and will enable very early detection
of canine cancer from a blood ‘fingerprint’.
The screening service is based on proteomic
technology, which looks for characteristic patterns
to detect a range of cancer markers in serum samples.
The technology enables malignancies to be picked up
early when treatment has the best chance of success.
It is inexpensive, convenient and minimally invasive,
making it ideal for regular yearly or bi-annual testing
in high risk canine breeds.
If cancer is detected a combined rapid
histopathology and individualized chemotherapy service
is uniquely available. Petscreen’s Directed Chemotherapy
Assay (DCA) highlights resistance from the start, and
identifies the treatments most likely to be effective.
This impact of the chemotherapy treatment on tumour
regression can then be monitored by further proteomic
sampling.
The program will be available through
selected veterinary hospitals and primary practices
across the UK…….and many practices have
expressed interest in adopting the Petscreen program.
Petscreen has launched their Preferred
Partner programnme in the UK and USA to rapidly fast
track the availability of the service during 2006.
Already potential Market partners in Europe and Japan
have approached the company………and
they hope to shortly announce a global partnership
with a large international corporation, to enable them
to globalize their operations very quickly.
Petscreen is one of a new generation
of companies to utilize technologies which are emerging
as a result of genome research. Headquartered in Biocity,
Nottingham, one of the UK’s leading centres of
bioscience excellence, Petscreen will work with forward
thinking veterinary hospitals and practices in an effort
to widely provide positive detection and treatment
of this devastating disease.
“Using innovative technologies
and data analysis to shine light into dark places
is the consummate focus of the Petscreen group,” comments
Professor Graeme Radcliffe, company chairman. “Playing
a global role to focus, support and help not one
but many dogs (and cats very soon) is our absolute
passion and commitment!”
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