This Month at Vetrica

10 September 2005

Latest News

This page contains the latest news from Vetrica and Vetrica OnLine. It updates at least monthly, and will also keep you up to date with the latest news about animal care and welfare.

An archive of previous articles is also available.

Itchy Skins

The past month has seen a lot of dogs and cats with itchy skin. This is always common in the summer months, but this year has been particularly bad. The culprit is the harvest mite, Trombicula autumnalis, also known as the "berry bug" or "grass mite".

Harvest mites are bright orange mites, about the size of a pin head. Only the larvae of the harvest mite is parasitic; the adults are free-living, being found mainly in grassy areas. On their own they're pretty difficult to see, but they often congregate in large clumps making the task a lot easier. Their favourite spots on an animal are between the toes, and occasionally the belly.

Treatment is not easy. Frontline^® spray works quite well, but even despite treatment, some animals need medication to suppress the itch that the mites cause. When the weather cools down the mites die off and treatment is no longer required.

This Month's Interesting Case.

What's that in Duffy's intestines (marked X)?	Duffy is a 10 year old Labrador, with a long history of digestive system upsets. Like most Labradors, Duffy is not very fussy about what she eats. So when she was sick, her owner wasn't initially too worried. After a few days she still wasn't improving so she was x-rayed. The picture on the left shows the x-ray, and a strange object in Duffy's intestines.
The foreign material was a piece of string of the type normally wrapped around a Sunday roast.	We took Duffy into theatre to remove the object from her intestines, and discovered that it was a string normally found wrapped around a piece of meat. Fortunately, there were no long-term ill-effects, and Duffy made a full recovery.

We take all manner of things from dogs (and cats) intestines. Pebbles are probably the most common foreign body, but pieces of children's toys, balls, and clothing are not unusual. Most dogs do make a full recovery, but it does depend a bit on the nature of the foreign object. String (or video tape) can be a particular problem. If it anchors in the stomach (or sometimes even in the mouth), the intestines bunch up along the string which can require the removal of large portions of the animal's intestines.

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