Joey’s Pet of the Week – Rosso and the Rat Bait

By Scott Lackenby | Dated September 14, 2016

Heya gang! How are you all? Well the meagre rations continue even though I’m losing weight. I am officially under 5.2kg, todays weight was 5.12kg,  and I’m not even allowed to celebrate that with cake or a bikkie. I was forced to steal salad from Nurse Layne. Yes, you read that right. I’m so hungry I’m stealing SALAD! Surely this is grounds for some sort of intervention. Maybe one of you lovely people out there reading this could sneak me in a cupcake or something next time you are in……

Nurse Nicole is away at the moment and I miss her. She helps me a heap with my Facebook stuff. But she is enjoying a lovely cruise with her sister to the Melanesian Islands, so I’ve been forced to bug other people for a while.  I wonder if you can post postcards from a cruise ship…..

If you follow us on Instagram, you would of seen we announced the winner of our Winter competition. The adorable Romeo was in with his humans recently to collect his winnings. We also announced the winner of our Dental Month guessing competition. There was a grand total of 562 teeth lollies in the jar and the closest guess was 550 by one of our very good clients, Cathy, who not only won the jar of lollies but an amazing dental prize pack. The next closest guess was 576 by Tessa, who also won a dental hamper. Congratulations to all our winners and a big thank you to everyone who participated.

My star this week is the cheeky Rosso, a 4year old Irish Terrier from Pymble who came in to see Dr John Morgan when he had been off colour and vomiting. Rosso’s temperature was normal and no tick was found during a tick search. Rosso was given an injection to help settle his stomach and sent home with some antibiotics as given the rest of his exam was unremarkable, Dr John was treating Rosso for gastro. Dr John did ask Rosso’s Mum to go home and check the yard for any diarrhoea.

Ross came back the next day with bloody diarrhoea. When Dr John examined Rosso, he discovered that Rosso wasn’t passing bloody diarrhoea, he was passing blood. Rosso was admitted for blood tests so we could work out what was going on. The in house blood tests revealed that Rosso was mildly anaemic and he had a low platelet count. This was a worry given what he was passing out the back end. Dr John spoke to Rosso’s owners. They had been using rat bait on their property but in a location that Rosso shouldn’t be able to assess. The active ingredient in rat baits caused blood to stop clotting and the effected animal bleeds to death. If not treated quickly, there was a chance that Rosso could bleed to death.

Dr John consulted with a specialist about the best course of action. It was advised to start Rosso on a plasma infusion to decrease his risk of a catastrophic bleed. Dr John also started Rosso on some Vitamin K chews. Vitamin K helps to promote blood clotting. The Nurses would have to closely monitor Rosso’s wee and poo to be on the look out for any sign of blood and we all had to be super careful when handling Rosso and when he was out of the cage. Small knocks can turn in to big bruises and even internal bleeding when your blood isn’t clotting properly. Rosso spent the night in with us for some confined cage rest but his clotting levels had improved the next day so he was able to go home on strict orders to rest and take it easy. Rosso had to come back one day after going home and then 2 days after that and then 2weeks after that for repeat blood tests. The good news is, Rosso’s bloods were all normal! They were so normal 2weeks after that Rosso could stop the Vitamin K and he and Dr John celebrated by giving Rosso is annual vaccination!!

Well, better go. I’m off to hang around my food bowl to see if I can trick someone into feeding me. Meows for now, love Joey xox