E-Vet Clinic - Dog Health Care

Over the years I have had the opportunity to be involved with many, many different patients and occasionally some of them pass on and are no longer with us. It is a sad time for the owners of these family members, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank the owners for bringing and sharing such wonderful dogs into my life.

In the past few months I have had the opportunity to share my care and treatment to two dogs that I will always remember and they have both passed -

(owners names withheld for privacy)

Filly - you will be missed for your enthusiastic, hyper-energetic greetings and visits. It is amazing what shape you were in for an old(er) Labrador. No one ever guessed you were that old. Unfortunately your big heart (in more ways than one) got the better of you and you will be sorely missed.

Huey - you will be missed for your unsure of what I am doing to you look. To your owners amazement you would let me do what I had to even though it seemed like you were not quite sure. It was a shame that you had to contract the horrible degenerative myelopathy that German Shephards are prone to contracting. It was great to see the smile on your owners face when she talked about you “walking, actually walking” on the underwater treadmill.

If I missed any others I am sorry. Please inform me and I will put up a memorial to your dog.

I have a future post coming up on another one of my clients dogs, a success story about degenerative myelopathy - wait till you hear the story about Bear!

If you are buying dog electrolytes you are wasting your money!

I had this discussion with my trainer today and being a knowledgable person herself she agrees that electrolytes are a waste of money. Here’s why…

Dogs do not sweat like you and I or horses. They pant to cools themselves off.

When we sweat our body releases moisture through the skin to evaporate and cool us off. In the meantime we also lose the salt or electrolytes through our skin. It is part of the process to get the water through the surface of the skin..it needs electrolytes to perform this function. So the electrolytes stay on the outside of our body with no way of getting back in, so we have to replenish those with some form of electrolyte substance, usually in the food we eat or in some cases some type of electrolyte drink, i.e. Gatorade or Powerade.

Dogs pant - their mechanism is to evaporate water through breathing and their mouth. When the electrolytes are passed in saliva and the water evaporates from their tongue and mucosal surfaces of their mouth the electrolytes stay on their surface just like our skin when we sweat; however it is still in their body. All they have to do is drink water to replace everything. So those drinks that have electrolytes in them for dogs are a complete waste of your money. Dogs do not lose electrolytes during a hot day or performing an athletic event. They do however lose a lot of water and that needs to be replenished.

So do not buy electrolyte drinks for your dog, just some cool fresh water will do. You want to waste money buy them some nice bottled water that someone makes out of their basement tap! LOL