My cat was in a fight a couple of weeks ago. She had a cut under her arm (her armpit for lack of a better descriptor). I noticed tonight that the cut has swelled significantly and even has a very bad smell with it. I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do for her at home and/or if I should just take her to the vet first thing in the morning?

Answer:

Yes, there are things you can do at home but also you should take her to the vet tomorrow….she may have an abscess (hopefully your cat is current on her Rabies vacc…if not, you’ll need to talk to your vet about that tomorrow as well).

An abscess occurs after a puncture wound introduces bacteria under the skin, which then gets infected and becomes, basically, a pocket of pus. Most of the time, abscesses need to be lanced, though sometimes they rupture themselves when they become “ripe” enough. One thing you can do at home is to attempt to apply warm compresses to the area (and if your cat won’t let you, don’t do it….it’s not worth getting bitten or scratched and these are painful until they either get lanced or rupture).

Try to apply a warm compress 5 minutes or so 3 times daily.. it’s possible the abscess may rupture when you apply the pressure to it, and if that happens, just clean it up with the warm compress as best you can. You can even try to gently squeeze the swelling to encourage drainage (again, depending how painful or not it is). It would be a good idea to wear latex gloves and do this in a non-carpeted area.

Your cat should see the vet to have the wound examined, and discuss treatment options. Most likely your cat will need antibiotics, and again, possible treatment of the abscess (lance, flush, and possible drains placed into the wound). Don’t feed your cat in the AM before you take in her as she may need sedation or anesthesia to treat the abscess properly.

Previous questions and answers are posted below:

Question: We can’t get rid of our cat fleas!

We can’t get rid of our cat fleas. I use Frontline Plus monthly (which seems to do no good at all). Use capstar mixed with food off and on but one of the cats won’t eat the food with it in. Does not seem to do much anyway. Have dipped them in Adams, bathed the with Adams shampoo, sprayed them with Adams spray, had the house treated twice and it is sprayed monthly. The fleas are not bothering us. My daughter claims to see them in her room but none of the rest of us are seeing them. I have seen them on the cats. Oh and I have also bombed and sprayed all the rooms myself and our exterminator sprays the yard. Is there something better than frontline? It is very expensive to keep this up and I am at my wit’s end.

Already Tried: Frontline Plus, Capstar, Adams dip, Adams shampoo, extermination services.

Answer:

Wow, you’re certainly doing everything you can to keep the fleas under control. Yes, to answer your question, my personal opinion and experience, is that Advantage® (imidacloprid) works better for fleas than Frontline Plus® and Frontline Top Spot® (fipronil) from Merial . I love Frontline Plus® (use it on my own dogs), but it does seem to work better for ticks than for fleas. You can use Advantage® on your cats monthly and you can also use it on your dog (along with Comfortis ®for Dogs (spinosad) if needed), or your dog can also get K9 Advantix® (which has a permethrin based insecticide) as well, which is for DOGS only.

Some people have found they need to apply Frontline Plus® every 3 weeks to achieve decent control, but it does get expensive to use it that often.

Also, you may want to treat the house and your daughter’s room next time with a spray that contains IGR (insect growth regulator)…I like Siphotrol® : (they have a fogger too)

http://actioncarevet.vetsfirstchoice.com/siphotrolr-plus-area-treatment-spray-24oz

Best wishes and let me know how things works out for you!

Dr. K

Other products available:

Revolution® (selamectin) from Pfizer

Comfortis ®for Dogs (spinosad) from Elanco Animal Health Division of Eli Lilly

Program® and Sentinel® (Lufenuron) from Novartis

New products available:

Promeris for Cats® (metaflumizone) from Fort Dodge

Promeris Duo for Dogs® (metaflumizone/amitraz) from Fort Dodge

Vectra 3-D for Dogs® (dinotefuran, permethrin, pyriproxifen) from Summit Vet Pharm

Vectra for Cats® (dinotefuran, pyriproxifen) from Summit Vet Pharm

Nylar® (Pyriproxifen)

Read  more about fleas and these products on:

http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&S=0&C=0&A=1575

9) You don’t have to load your kids in the car

8) You don’t have to load your pets in the car

7) Your cat won’t despise you forever

6) You don’t have to plan the whole day around hauling all the pets to the vet and back

5) Your dog and/or cat will not get car sick

4) You don’t have to wait in a crowded waiting room with dogs barking and cats scared to death in their carriers

3) You will save GAS

2) You don’t have to worry about a dog fight

1) What could be more convenient??

We are pleased to announce the arrival of our new Dodgen 22 ft Mobile Clinic!  This truck is a 2004 unit equipped with hydraulic lift table and convenient pull-out scale and a nicer wide-entry door with easy access steps.  We look forward to showing it to you!

Action Care Mobile Veterinary Clinic, LLC held a fundraiser for the Tri-County Animal Shelter in Hughesville, MD by selling raffle tickets for a special basket filled with pet goodies at the Bark in the Park event September 2010 located at the Regency Furniture Stadium, home of the Blue Crabs.  As a sponsor of the event, Action Care Mobile Clinic was parked just outside of the stadium doors and greeted patrons, pets, and handed out special bandanas and goodie bags to all who visited.  We enjoyed our evening visiting the Stadium and watching the ball game and meeting fun people and their pets!  The fundraiser was a success and earned over $250 for the shelter.

Thanks to our staff who all volunteered and to the Krasznay kids who pitched in to help selling raffle tickets!

Dear Valued Clients of Dr. Hocking:

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Hocking’s veterinary records and database have been transferred to our veterinary clinic, Action Care Mobile Veterinary Clinic, LLC, serving the Tri-County area of Southern Md. Our staff will be available to address any questions or needs that Dr. Hocking’s former clients may have regarding their records or for veterinary care.

Additionally, we welcome and look forward to taking on active clients of Dr. Hocking as clients into our mobile veterinary clinic. We have been in business in Southern Maryland since 2005 and Dr. Krasznay, a 1989 graduate of Virginia Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, has 20 + years of experience in small animal medicine. We serve only dogs and cats at this time. We have the capability in our mobile veterinary clinic to do all routine care, diagnostics, dentistry, some surgery, and x-rays in small pets as well.

Our days of service are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and some Saturdays. Our hours are 9-5. Receptionists are available to take and return calls on Mondays and Fridays as well.

Please call for an appointment at our office #: 301-884-PETS(7387).  Email inquiries are also welcome: actioncarevet@earthlink.net.

Our practice does not dispense any prescription medication without an active client-patient relationship. All pets will first need an exam with our veterinarian to establish such relationship. Please do not call our practice to refill medications or prescription diets that Dr. Hocking has prescribed for you, as we will need to establish our own client–patient relationship, as stipulated under the law. If your animal is on prescription medication, please schedule a well-check appointment as soon as possible so that we may keep your pet on course with his therapeutic needs.

Hill’s Pet Foods, including prescription diets, are available for home delivery for a reasonable shipping fee through our web store.

Also available on our web store are a variety of flea products, heartworm preventatives, and many OTC products plus prescription medications, for very reasonable pricing. Free shipping is available with all heartworm preventatives and many flea topical products, such as Frontline and Advantage. Prescription medications and diets will still need authorization from Dr. Krasznay.

Please call with any questions regarding pricing, vaccination protocols, or the health of your pet. We do not take emergency or after-hour calls. We do accept cash, checks, and credit cards for payment.

Thank you so much for your time and we welcome you to join us at Action Care Mobile Veterinary Clinic, LLC.

Sincerely,

Diane Krasznay DVM and Staff

Friday, Feb. 9, 2007

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photos by Gary Smith Diane Krasznay, right, and her veterinary technician Samantha Bowling hold Tiger, a 14-year-old cat, during an exam inside the Action Care mobile veterinary clinic. Krasznay’s Mechanicsville home is the base for her mobile veterinary clinic. Click here to enlarge this photo Veterinary technician Gina Krouse and Dr. Mark Hocking watch as Arthur, a 25-year-old cockatiel belonging to Kevin McDermott of Waldorf, flaps his just-trimmed wings. McDermott and Arthur visited Hocking’s mobile veterinary clinic, which is based in St. Leonard but was parked in Waldorf at the time.

When Karen Kelley had to make a serious and difficult decision about her pet of 17 years, she found the help she needed from Rhya Marohn.

Marohn is a veterinarian with an office that she takes to her patients, and to Kelley, that was a comfort that she might not have found by transporting her dog to a traditional office.

‘‘She’s offering a wonderful service,” Kelley said of Marohn. Kelley’s dog, a black and white peekapoo named Buddy, had been in the Kelley family for 16 years, since he was a year old.

‘‘We were joined at the hip for all those years,” she said.

But as 2006 came to a close, it became clearer that Buddy’s time with the family was ending. ‘‘A couple days after Christmas it reached crisis stage,” Kelley said, so she called Marohn. The veterinarian was able to come to Kelley’s home and put the dog to sleep without the stress of taking him to an office.

‘‘It was so much easier on everybody,” Kelley said. ‘‘If I ever have another pet, I will always take them to her. … She was just wonderful.”

Marohn said she just got started with her mobile business last fall. The story of her career is a winding one, which includes being in the Army, going to veterinary school and just finishing law school.

‘‘I was going to do animal law,” Marohn said, but found what she really wanted was to work with the animals themselves. Also, the job gives her more time with her children, who are 4 and 5 1⁄2, because of the flexible hours.

The overhead for Marohn, who works out of her minivan and her White Plains home, includes just the equipment that she takes from home to home. She said she does not have radiology and surgical equipment like some vets, but she is just getting started. She also has no other staff.

For Marohn, the biggest draw of being a mobile vet is working with people and pets in their own environment.

‘‘It’s just really great to see how much people love their pets,” she said. With home visits, cats don’t have to go through the stress of being placed (or wrangled) into a carrier. Of course, that doesn’t mean cats are exactly happy to see her walk through the door.

‘‘I have to pull a lot of cats out from underneath beds,” Marohn said. But when she is finished with their exam, ‘‘they go back to their favorite spot in the window or whatever.”

Candace Guyther opened her mobile service based in Leonardtown, Vet A Pet, part time in 1991 and by 1992, it had turned to a full-time practice.

Guyther said she most often does routine checkups and vaccinations for animal owners who either want the convenience of a home visit or are unable to go to an office. When the business first started, she said it was a novelty.

‘‘There weren’t any mobile vets doing small animals,” she said. Vets have always made farm visits for large animals like cows and horses so the animals do not have to be loaded onto trailers when they need care.

Now, Guyther has a busy schedule between the mobile appointments and her stationery office, especially in the summers. She said she thinks people want to spend their summers working in their yards rather than in a waiting room.

Owners of multiple pets are big customers because of the difficulty of bringing several dogs into the office at once.

Being a mobile vet has its problems, too. Guyther said some pet owners might have large dogs that can cause trouble for the vet.

‘‘I have had skirmishes” with dogs whose owners could not control them. She said she brings an assistant or insists that the owner control their pet.

In her years as a mobile vet, Guyther said she has neutered a dog on a table in its owner’s home, and has taken X-rays and performed laser treatments on her visits. Most are visits, though, like the one to home of an elderly woman who has a difficult time handling her dog, which needs blood tests.

Another customer is a paraplegic who is unable to drive and needs help getting his cats vaccinated.

Diane Krasznay runs Action Vet Care from her Mechanicsville home, but all of her visits are at patients’ homes. She said her patients are usually looking for convenience.

‘‘A lot of people have multiple pets,” Krasznay said. ‘‘It’s great for people that have disabilities, the elderly, stay-at-home moms … busy, working people.”

Krasznay said she is able to offer flexible hours and gets a lot of Saturday appointments. She said there are some things about being mobile that are more convenient for the vet, as well.

With inventory in her home and no rented space, she said the cost is a little less to run the office. She has a part-time staff so that she can have someone with her at every appointment. ‘‘It makes my time a little more efficient,” she said. She said she has been running the mobile office for a little more than a year. ‘‘There is definitely a demand for the service.”

After 18 years of working for a traditional animal hospital, Mark Hocking decided he was ready for something new. He started researching the mobile vet business and found that he could purchase a truck that would include just about everything a veterinarian needs, including a surgery suite. Six years ago, he found a used truck and after a few years, decided he needed a new one all his own.

‘‘We just had a brand new one custom-built,” Hocking said. The truck is 26 feet long, and he said the inside looks just like a regular medical office. ‘‘It’s a lot nicer to be able to get out and about.”

Hocking echoed the sentiments of the other vets, saying it’s easier for people who are disabled, elderly or who just have too many animals to bring them to the office all at once.

Hocking has basically eliminated his stationary office, now using a room in his St. Leonard home where his wife and an employee take calls, make appointments and keep patient charts. The only thing he does not have is a place to keep animals for long-term care. In instances where that is needed, he refers patient owners to a more traditional hospital, he said.

E-mail Carrie Lovejoy at clovejoy@somdnews.com.

http://ww2.somdnews.com/stories/020907/indybus85627_32139.shtml