Archive for December, 2007

Pet insurance is designed to provide cover for unexpected visits to the vet caused by illness or accident. Owners can reduce the frequency of these nasty surprise trips by taking sensible precautions.

One of the most effective ways of preventing illness is to schedule regular health check ups. Most practices encourage these visits, they give the vet the opportunity to catch any potential problems early and administer preventative medicines such as worming and flea treatments.

A healthcare visit should include a physical exam and an opportunity for the practice to discuss with the owner issues around nutrition, exercise and behavioural training.

A recent survey by Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) which polled 4,000 customers in the US showed that 96 percent of respondents visited their vet for routine and preventative treatments once a year, with 43 percent choosing to make multiple visits. Veterinary Pet Insurance encourages this type of visit by offering a Pet WellCare Protections (SM) Plan which pays towards the cost. Some pet insurance companies in the UK have offered similar schemes in the past, but they have floundered due to a lack of interest from the pet owning public.

With no national scheme in place to support a health plan for preventative treatments, many vet practices now offer their own budgeting plans. Braid Vets in Edinburgh for example provides a health plan that includes: annual vaccinations, two vet examinations a year, together with flea and worming treatments. Customers signing up to the scheme have the benefit of having costs broken down into monthly direct debit payments, with extended payments for more expensive treatments and further discounts.

Pet insurance is easily obtainable for elderly dogs – the issue is not availability, but cost. Unfortunately, it’s a sad fact that as dogs get older they are more likely to visit the vet for treatment. Each trip to the local practice comes at a price, so insurance companies cover themselves by charging a higher premium for older pets.

The graph below shows how the premium for a Buddies pet insurance policy changes over the years.* It records the cost of insuring a Labrador Retriever from early adulthood to old age. Premiums start at under £15 a month and rise gradually, reaching around £18 a month by the age of five. At 10 years of age the price is £30 a month, topping out at £40 a month for a 14 year old dog.

Owners of older dogs need to think about taking measures to minimise the problems of age related conditions. As well as considering six-monthly check ups at the vets, owners should feel their dog’s coat for lumps at least once a week.

Changes in behaviour can also be an early warning sign of a medical problem, including:

Arthritis – a common condition in older dogs. While there are medical
treatments available, owners can help manage arthritic pain by maintaining a pet’s regular daily exercise routine and massaging the affected joints.

Deafness – an unfortunate affliction of old age. While dog hearing aids are being developed, a more practical approach is to teach simple hand signals before the condition deteriorates.

Diabetes – special diets and insulin treatments are available for the condition, but late onset diabetes can be dealt with through exercise and sensible eating. A healthy regime will also help prevent heart disease.

Incontinence – due to slackening of the muscles that hold the urethera shut. A condition that can be treated with medication from the vet.

Cataracts – a clouding of the lens of the eye. Can be treated with surgery.

* Labrador Retriever, living in PL31 postcode, prices at 3/12/07

The Vet was in an expansive mood. Christmas holidays had just ended and his surgery, closed for almost two weeks, was due to open the following morning – so the money would come rolling in again.

His mood was defined by an unusually cheerful countenance, the whistling of a tune popular some 40 years previously and his attitude to the various visitors who came to wish him all the best for the New Year. And for the first time since I came to the house, carol singers received sweets, admittedly they had been lying in the cupboard for a couple of years, but the thought was definitely there.

The whole scene was slightly suspicious from my point of view. As his pet dog he had always treated me well and Christmas had been no exception. I was given practically the same food as he ate – minus the traditional pudding which failed to  excite me, or any other dog I know, too gooey, much too sweet and full of fruit which I never eat. But plenty of meat on the bone, pieces of pork pie which I adore and more delectable biscuits than I could eat.

I had given the gang the week off and did not intend to call a meeting until well into the new year. As they all came from good homes, I expected they, too, had eaten well and would need a rest from all that excess.

But the Vet’s strange and uncharacteristic behaviour, his good humour and cheerfulness, needed to be explained and I alone could not find a reason. Normally I am loath to seek advice from the gang because I needed to show that I was far superior when it came to explaining man’s many moods.

But the Vet had me bewildered. I was not complaining about the air of happiness pervading the house but I did need to find out the cause. Perhaps if I knew why he was such a cheerful chap, I could use the intelligence to prolong his frame of mind, or reactivate it when it disappeared - as inevitably it would.

I explained the situation to the gang and as usual my number two, Gus the Alsatian, was the first – and last - to come up with a plan. Why not, he suggested, turn the gang members into detectives to spy on the Vet during the time he is outside the surgery?

I could take on surveillance inside the house and listen in to telephone calls. They would follow him at a discreet distance and see if his travels revealed any clues.

Frankly I could not think of anything better and we divided the lads into groups of two. I needed a witness for all reports, knowing I could not rely completely on anyone’s ability to remember what happened just that morning never mind a whole day and arranged for a report-back meeting at the end of the week.

I kept an ear cocked during surgery time, but heard nothing that would account for the Vet’s strange behaviour.

When the time came for the gang meeting everyone turned up – in itself a surprise as some were apt to fall asleep and fail to turn up - and two by two they reported.
It added up to a big nothing until the very last group, Billie, the Border Collie, and Aaron, the Airedale Terrier, cleared their throats and came out with the solution.

The Vet had been regularly visiting the house of the widow Mrs Glossop and staying far longer than was necessary to administer medical aid to her pet poodle.

There was romance in the air, they reported.

The Vet has spent months trying to buy a grandfather clock. He explained to Mary, the housekeeper, that the house used to have one in the hallway when he was young and then, suddenly, it disappeared.

He thinks his mother got rid of it because the incessant chiming got on her nerves and once his father had passed on, the first thing she did was sell the clock.

The Vet marvelled at the way some widows – he actually thought they were in the majority - emptied their houses of articles which their late husbands held dear as quickly as possible after the funeral. It seems that for years they had disliked whatever he collected, but did not want to hurt his feeling by telling him so.

That is the reason, he told Mary, that his mother sold the grandfather clock, his father’s pride and joy. Now, the Vet said, he wanted to replace it as it brought back so many happy memories for him.

Naturally he took me along on his forays into the antique shops of the neighbourhood and we spent hours as he questioned the owners about where he could pick one up cheaply.

But, to his surprise, not only were there no cheap ones to be found, there were just no clocks available. He was told that they were out of fashion and modern houses could not fit them in, so the bottom had dropped out of the market and dealers were no longer stocking them.

After weeks of fruitless searching he gave up and thankfully I could return to my routine of sloth and snoozing.

Then, one fateful day, there was a telephone call.  The Vet was informed that a certain man who renovated grandfather clocks had not one, not two, but 20 for sale. He was invited to take his pick.

We rushed round in the car and there it was… a workshop packed with fine grandfather clocks in all sizes and in full working order. The Vet was so overjoyed he forgot to leave me in the car and practically invited me to accompany him.

As the seller recounted the advantages of each clock, some of which were more than 200 years old, the Vet searched for the one nearest to his memory of his father’s favourite.

At last he made up his mind and chose a magnificent example who chimes would not have put the local church to shame. Following a tremendous amount of hard bargaining a deal was struck and transport arranged.

When the clock arrived, the Vet was so happy he even tipped the driver, something Mary said had never happened before. It was given pride of place in the hallway, exactly the spot where the Vet remembered the original stood.

The Vet wound it up and stood back admiring the gleaming wooden case. Then it chimed, almost knocking him backwards with the force of the sound. It chimed on the hour, every half hour and even on the quarters.

Not too bad during the day, but at night no one, including, me could sleep. The Vet was looking more frazzled every day and after two weeks he called the transport man to take the clock back. He lost a lot of money over the deal and was in a bad temper for weeks.

I have learned over the years that human relationships can be rather tricky – the Vet’s attempt to find a lasting partner, for instance. We dogs suffer from no similar frailties. We have friends but no relatives.

It is a fact that once we are born and leave the litter we have no memory of either our siblings or even, sad to say, our mother.

How was it therefore, that the other day as the gang sat in the barn doing nothing in particular except the usual scratching, stretching and yawning in walks a dog and claims he is my brother?

I know I was born in a litter of six pups but left at eight weeks, never to see any of them again. My memory stretches back quite a long way, but does not include a mind’s eye picture of little puppies playing in a basket.

So who was this impostor?

It was obvious we were the same breed and we had similar markings, but as for being brothers…quite out of the question.

Being a hospitable gang we did invite him in and listened attentively as he unfolded his story. He said his name was Peter, and was eight human years old. He said that I was one of six, four boys and two girls, and that I was the first to be offered a home. He was the last and stayed with his mother for around six months.

He then went to a farmer and his family and enjoyed a happy life there until two months ago, when a new pup was brought in and he was left out in the cold, almost literally he added, because he swapped his cosy basket in the kitchen for a kennel in one of the outhouses.

He decided to leave and went in search of relatives.

Peter was obviously intelligent –a definite sign that we could be related – and his speech patterns were very similar to mine. In fact, the gang kept looking from him to me as he spoke and I could see from their expressions that they were beginning to warm to this stranger.

He continued his story and the gang followed quite intrigued. He found the breeder where he was born and spent some time sniffing around the place to see if any dog remembered him. After all this time, even he realised that it was an impossible task.

But, just as he about to leave an old dog, white muzzled and frail, came up to him and claimed to know his history as a pup. The old dog said he knew where the rest of the litter was settled and the one place he recalled most clearly was the Vet’s house, where I had finished up. Peter said he travelled with the breeder when he delivered me, so he too knew the house.

By this time I was convinced Peter’s story was a load of nonsense and he was making fools of the whole gang and particularly me. I was sure he had no real recollections of me and the whole story was a fabrication.

To prove it I asked him by what name my mother was known when she gave birth to us six. He mumbled and stumbled obviously not able to reply. He finally admitted that he had come across the gang in the barn a few days ago and needed somewhere to bed down, permanently if possible and thought up the ruse.

The gang obviously felt sorry for him and offered, through me, to let him stay a little while until we might help him find a new home in the neighbourhood.

He settled down in the corner and fell fast asleep. The gang then turned to me to ask if I really knew my mother’s name. Not a clue, I replied, but I thought the question might catch him out. I was ready with “Matilda” in case he tried a bluff.
 

We dogs have no interest in human politics, but the Vet has become fixated and watches every evening TV news broadcast. When they finish he turns on the radio, although it is much the same nonsense as the previous bulletins.

He then discusses what he has heard every morning with Mary, the housekeeper, and while she yawns all the way through his complicated explanations, I turn a keen ear to what he says. I believe I could learn some lessons on running my gang.

Top dog in my gang, of course, is me with Gus, the Alsatian, as my deputy. These roles will never change while I am in charge and, much like my human counterpart – the Prime Minister – I am beset with underlings eager to replace me.

According to the Vet, the Prime Minister keeps his role by what he terms “divide and rule”, a phrase I did not really understand until the Vet explained it to Mary, who is less interested in politics than anyone I know.

Having learned that it means keeping the underlings busy at each other’s throats so they have no time for plotting, my thoughts turned to the gang and how this rule could be applied.

On thinking it through I realised that this policy has been the bedrock of my rule for many years, applied automatically. When I explained this to Gus he affirmed that it showed I was a natural leader and really had no need of advice from the Prime Minister, or anyone else.

Of course, I was flattered by his comment, but was honest enough with myself to believe that, talented as I am, I could learn something new from such prominent figures as the country’s political bosses.

The trouble was that all my information was second hand, coming from the Vet in his morning monologues with Mary. I needed to get it fresh from the original sources. That would mean sitting by the Vet each evening and not falling asleep as soon as the bulletins start.

At my stage of life and particularly after a filling supper this was not easy. I do tend to doze off a lot and the gang members have noticed this. There have rumblings that maybe I should give up the leadership as I was getting too old for the job. Of course a few sharp barks and the occasional nip soon puts an end to that, but it still leaves me with the problem of staying awake in the evenings.

Gus, good lad that he is, came up with the solution. I must sleep more during the day. Increased afternoon naps, he told me, taken regularly and at some length would do the trick and leave me wide awake after supper.

I put the plan into immediate effect – and for the first two or three days it worked fine.

I listened to all the politics I could stand and learned absolutely nothing from the blatherings of the men and women running the country.

Because of that I realised I would have to rely on my own innate ability to rule. It was soon back to the old routine of leisurely afternoon naps and dozing by the Vet’s side in the evenings. Bliss.