5 Ways to Keep Your Pet Happy in Winter

Who said pets can’t have fun in the winter?! Although temps in the North can get pretty frigid in January, it’s still important for your pet to stay active and stimulated for their overall health. Consider Brookfield Animal Hospital’s list below of five ways to keep your pet happy in the winter, and give us a call at 203-775-3679 if you have any questions.

Play Hide and Seek

Everyone likes a game of hide and seek every once in a while, including your pet. Simply hide your pet’s favorite toy or treat in a place where they can see. Then, let them have fun retrieving it. For cats, you can try leaving the toy or treat high on the highest level of their tower so they have to climb up to get it.

Teach Your Pet a New Trick

Both dogs and cats can learn tricks, so why not use those winter hours indoors to teach your furry friend a new trick? Training your pet can strengthen your bond with them and improve their overall behavior, so it’s certainly worth the effort. Remember to always reward your pet for doing the trick, and limit the training sessions to about 15 minutes a day.

Buy an Interactive Toy

Many pets tend to get a little lazy, both physically and mentally, during the winter, but with an interactive toy, you can change that. From laser pointers to food toys, there are many options available that can provide some mental stimulation for your four-legged friend. They can also help your pet get some exercise in, too.

Take Your Dog to an Indoor Park

You know your dog needs exercise, but your home or apartment just isn’t spacious enough for them to run around. If this sounds like YOUR situation, consider visiting an indoor dog park. Indoor dog parks are climate-controlled and offer spacious areas for your canine companion to run around and play.

Install a Window Perch (for Kitty)

Since cats tend to lie around for most of the day, once they reach a certain age, installing a window perch is a great way to keep them busy and stimulated throughout the day. Many cats love to bird watch and watch the snow fall, so by having a padded perch installed on your window, you can keep your cat happy and alert during those cold winter days.

How Safe is Your Pet this Season?

The veterinary team at Brookfield Animal Hospital wants to ensure that your best friend is safe all season long. There are many new dangers that pets may encounter around the holidays. We’re always here to answer your questions about your pet’s needs.

Top 5 Most Common Holiday Dangers for Pets

These are some of the most common dangers that we often see during the holiday season:

•  Alcohol. While we can handle having a few drinks in celebration of the season, our pets cannot. It’s important to always keep alcoholic beverages out your of your pet’s reach to ensure that they’re safe from the danger of alcohol poisoning.

• Christmas trees. It isn’t the holiday season without a festive tree! However, these lovely decorations can also cause a few hazards in the home. Christmas trees can be knocked over by overly adventurous and curious pets, causing damage to the home and injury to the animals! Another danger posed by Christmas trees is their ornaments and tinsel. If these are chewed up or eaten by your pet, they can be extremely dangerous to their digestive system, get caught in their intestines, and cause potentially deadly blockage.  

• Electrical cords. Does your best friend like to chew? The sight of all those new cords under the tree may be too appealing for your pet, so we recommend disguising and hiding electrical cords to prevent your pet’s curiosity. It’s also important that they never be left unattended around the decorations!

•  Holiday meals and sweets. You hear all year round that there are foods your pet should never consume, but during the holiday season we have so much more of those dangerous foods around the house! Traditional holiday meals contain so many of those dangers, like poultry bones, onions, garlic, grapes, and more. In addition, we often do a lot of baking during the holidays, introducing our pets to even more potential dangers with chocolate, sugar, macadamia nuts, raisins, and more. Keep those foods and treats out of your pet’s reach at all times!

•  Dangerous holiday plants. For some odd reason, the most popular plants to bring inside the home at the holidays are toxic to your pet! Amaryllis and lilies of all kinds are dangerous and we recommend keeping them out of your pet’s reach at all times so that your pet doesn’t have access to the leaves or berries that may fall off. You may also want to consider purchasing silk flowers for the look of the festive plant without the dangers. 

If you have any questions about your pet’s safety and well-being this holiday season, the veterinary team at Brookfield Animal Hospital can help! Please contact us today to ask us all of your pet safety questions. That’s what we’re here for! Have a happy and safe holiday with your pet this year. 

Veterinary Boarding at Brookfield Animal Hospital

Have you ever considered boarding your pet while you take a family vacation or a weekend trip? Not all boarding facilities are created equal. At Brookfield Animal Hospital, we are so proud to be able to offer veterinarian-staffed boarding to offer pet owners peace of mind about their pets’ safety while they stay with us.

Our animal hospital is staffed with veterinarians 7 days a week, ensuring that your pet will be cared for in the event of illness or a veterinary emergency. Many pet boarding facilities are staffed by employees rather than veterinarians and veterinary professionals, making them ill-equipped to provide for your pet’s needs should a medical situation arise. That is not the case at Brookfield Animal Hospital, where your pet can be treated promptly.

Additional Benefits to Veterinary-Staffed Boarding

We can also provide veterinary treatment to our guests, if scheduled in advance. We can do dental cleanings, administer vaccines, conduct annual examinations, etc., while your pet is staying at our facility, saving you future trips to the vet.

Tour the Brookfield Animal Hospital Boarding Facility

If you’re a new client at Brookfield Animal Hospital or if your pet has never boarded with us, we welcome you to come in for a tour of our boarding facility. We would love for you to see what we have to offer. Schedule a tour or book your pet’s reservation with us today!

Gluten-Free, Grain-Free and Natural Diets

We all know that good nutrition is important to health.  To help you make informed purchasing decisions, we’ve written a series of articles to help answer the question: “What should I feed my pet?”  In this blog article on pet nutrition, we will continue to try to demystify pet food selection by discussing gluten-free, grain-free, and natural diets.

In order to appeal to consumers, many pet food companies use terms like “natural”, “holistic”, “organic” and “human grade” with varied meanings.  The term "human grade" does not exist in any legal capacity so any company can claim their pet food contains “human grade” ingredients.  Since there are no official rules governing the labeling or organic foods for pets, monitoring and testing whether a pet food truly is organic is a low priority for the USDA.  Likewise, “holistic” is simply a marketing term without any specific definition and, since the term is not regulated, can be used on any pet food label.  AAFCO, the pet food industry’s regulatory body, does regulate “natural” to foods where NONE of the ingredients and components of ingredients are chemically synthesized (vitamins may be added).  This regulation does not apply to the food’s name, however.

With the growing number of people diagnosed with gluten allergies, pet food companies have begun marketing foods as grain or gluten-free.  But do these diets benefit pets?  Properly cooked grains in pet foods are highly digestible and dogs and cats can digest the carbohydrates from grains with an efficiency of greater than 90%.  Grains also contain fiber, which supports gastrointestinal health, as well as essential fatty acids and other nutrients that contribute to a healthy skin and coat.  Although allergies to proteins in grains can occur, less than 1% of dogs are sensitive to grains, far less common than allergies to animal protein sources.  Gluten allergies in dogs are very rare and have been reported primarily in Irish Setters.  Just as wheat gluten is added to breads to enhance their texture, a small amount in pet food helps canned formulas, kibbles and treats hold their shape.  Especially with dogs, gluten-free and grain-free diets do not typically provide superior nutrition than diets which do contain grains.

Although pet food packaging terms may not be very helpful information when choosing a pet food, the nutritional analysis does offer consumers some factual information.  Watch for our next blog explaining pet food nutrition labeling.

3 Halloween Pet Safety Tips

Who says Halloween is just for kids? Nowadays, more and more pet owners are involving their pets in this fun-filled holiday. If you’ll be one of them, it’s important to use caution, since Halloween can be actually be a dangerous time for a pet if you’re not prepared. Consider the following three pet safety tips by Brookfield Animal Hospital, so your four-legged friends can have a safe, happy Halloween with you and the rest of the family.

1. Choose Your Pet Costume Wisely

Dressing a pet up is one of the most popular and probably most enjoyable ways to include a pet in the Halloween festivities. Whether you’re thinking of dressing up your fur baby as an Ewok, a comic book superhero, or maybe even a piece of food, always consider the comfort level of the costume you choose before leaving it on your pet. Keep in mind that not all pets will tolerate wearing anything more than their own fur, no matter how comfortable the costume. Also, some costumes can actually be dangerous if they fit too tightly or have sharp pieces or pieces that can pose a choking hazard. If possible, try to get your pet comfortable in the costume a few days before Halloween. And if, after all your preparation, your pet still appears uncomfortable or downright irritated in the costume, don’t force them to wear it. Just hope for better luck next year.

2. Provide Pet Identification

Halloween is one of the most common times of the year that pets go missing. Sadly, this can be the result of being stolen from their own yards or from making a quick dash through the front door after seeing it continuously open for costumed trick-or-treaters. This is why it’s so important to make sure that your pet has sufficient identification that includes your current address and phone number.

A microchip is another great method of pet identification that we recommend. A microchip is a tiny device that’s about the size of a grain of rice that’s placed just under the surface of the skin, near a pet’s shoulder blades. Your pet’s microchip can contain a unique bar code that links to your contact information and can be scanned by most animal hospitals and shelters. Having both an ID tag and microchip can greatly increase the chances of  safe, happy reunion, should your pet ever become separated from you on Halloween—or any other time of the year.

3. Use Caution with Candy and Decorations

Did you know that chocolate is one of the toxic foods to pets, due to the presence of the alkaloid theobromine? Although the amount of theobromine varies in different types of chocolate, typically, the darker the chocolate, the higher the toxicity. The clinical signs of chocolate toxicity can range from vomiting to diarrhea to seizures and can take several hours to develop. The sugar substitute xylitol, which is common in many candies, is another ingredient that’s toxic to pets and can result in hypoglycemia if ingested. It’s best to keep all the sweets out of your pet’s reach.

Decorations like candles and lit jack-o-lanterns can also be dangerous to a curious pet that might accidentally knock them over, so use caution if you plan to have these around your home this Halloween.

Feel free to contact us at (203) 775-3679 if you have any questions about the tips mentioned above or if you’d like to learn more about Brookfield Animal Hospital. We hope you and your family—fur babies included—all have a safe, fun Halloween!

Are By-Products and Corn Bad?

Despite current pet food advertising campaign claims, the majority of by-products and corn in pet foods are a cost effective means to provide very good nutrition to pets.  Remember that advertisers want to sell their product.  Pet food companies know that pet owners are willing to pay a premium if they perceive that a pet food provides better nutrition for their pet.  Therefore, pet food is marketed towards those perceptions and not towards nutrition facts.  Many pet foods are now made to look like food that their owners eat or touted to be the same as what your pet would eat in the wild.  But, is feeding your pet the same as you or a wolf really the best nutrition for your pet?  Let’s take a look at by-product and corn facts.

A by-product is any ingredient that is produced or left over when some other product is made.  Broths and gelatin are examples of by-products.  In pet foods, by-products come from “clean” animal parts such as liver, kidneys and other organs which, although not aesthetically pleasing for we humans to eat, may provide superior nutrition compared to “traditional“ animal parts.  Muscle meat is deficient in many nutrients, including calcium and other vitamins and minerals.  These nutrients are abundant in meat by-products and boost the nutrient value of a pet food.  Using these other animal parts allows the whole animal to be utilized thus decreasing waste.  While we in western cultures may not choose to eat those parts, your pet would definitely eat those nutritious parts if hunting their food.

Corn provides an inexpensive, good source of carbohydrates, protein and essential fatty acids in the diets of dogs and cats.   Although cats, which are true carnivores, may do better with a primarily protein diet, decades of dog domestication have created dogs that are omnivores, digesting both protein and carbohydrates well.   Corn gluten meal contains 60-70% protein with many essential amino acids.  Corn gluten meal is easy to digest, making its nutrients readily available to your pet.  When combined with other protein sources, corn meal can contribute to a highly digestible and nutritious diet.  There are 5 grades of corn quality, of which human food traditionally uses grades 1 and 2.  Quality pet nutrition companies also use grade 1 and 2 for their pet foods.  Incorporating some corn allows companies to provide good nutrition while keeping their price reasonable. 

When it comes to pet food, advertising may be misleading.  We’ll continue to discuss the nutrition “facts” in coming articles.

Make Sure They Can Get Home: Check Your Pet's Microchip

Is your pet's microchip up-to-date? If your pet were lost, would an animal hospital or shelter be able to contact you once your pet was found?

It's important to get your pet microchipped; but it's just as important to make sure that microchip contains the correct information in order for your four-legged friend to get home.

How does a microchip work?
The microchip, which is about the size of a grain of rice, is injected by a veterinarian or veterinary technician just beneath your pet's skin in the area between the shoulder blades. This is usually done without anesthesia, and the experience can be compared to getting a vaccination.

Each microchip has a unique registration number that is entered into a database or registry, and is associated with your name and contact information. If your lost dog or cat is found by an animal hospital, shelter or humane society, they will use a microchip scanner to read the number and contact the registry to get your information.

Make sure you can be found, too
While it may be comforting to know the microchip won't get lost or damaged, and that it will probably last the pet's lifetime, the microchip is useless if you're not updating your contact information with the registry. If your pet has been microchipped, keep the documentation paperwork so you can find the contact information for the registry. If you don't have the documentation paperwork, contact the veterinarian or shelter where the chip was implanted.

Keep in mind there are more than a dozen companies that maintain databases of chip ID numbers in the U.S. By using AAHA's Universal Pet Microchip Lookup at petmicrochiplookup.org, you can locate the registry for your chip by entering the microchip ID number. If you don't have your pet's microchip ID number, have a veterinarian scan it and give it to you.

Only about 17% of lost dogs and 2% of lost cats ever find their way back to their owners. Prevent the heartache and ensure your pet has an up-to-date microchip.

Originally published by Healthy Pet.