Suffering in silence

I actually thought about writing this story down in my blog a couple years ago.  The topic is pretty emotional for me and sometimes it's hard for me to sit down and write about those kinds of topics.  My office manager came to me the beginning of June and wanted me to write a blog post for cat month.  Since this story is about a cat and since it illustrates a problem a lot of cat owners don't know about, I thought now would be the time to tackle writing this.  
This is Archie's story.

The story actually begins several years before Archie came into my life.  I had a client who had two barn cats.  Actually he had quite a few cats.  There were maybe three or four that lived full time in his house and like most of us who a.) love cats and b.) live in the country, there were a collection of stray cats that lived outside in the barn.  The barn cats were well cared for and loved.  They were spayed and neutered and vaccinated.  One day he brought in two of the barn cats because he noticed they were drooling and having trouble eating.  Both cats had severe dental and mouth disease.  You could smell the rottenness in their mouths.  When I would try and open their mouths to look inside, the cats would cry and wince in pain.   The disease is called stomatitis and unfortunately, no one really knows what causes this.  As in this case, it is not uncommon for me to see this in multiple cats in a household (or barnhold (?) as in this case) and often the cats are related to each other.  It is thought there is a combination of viral and genetic factors that trigger stomatitis.  Or at least that is what I think is going on.   The only treatment that seems to work is extracting all the teeth in the mouth.  Steroids and antibiotics will calm down the inflammation, but does not cure it and the swelling and pain come back when the medicine is stopped.  Although full mouth tooth extractions will cure some cats of this painful disease, it does not cure them all.  If it works, it works well.  If it doesn't work, then the cat is still in pain.  There is a lot of expense and time involved in trying to treat this disease.   I started the cats on antibiotics and discussed treatment and cost with the client.  He took the cats home to think about what he wanted to do.

This is a picture of a cat with inflamed gums caused by ordinary dental disease.  Multiply the redness and inflammation by at least 100 fold and that is stomatitis.

The following week he called me with his decision.  These were stray cats that just showed up at his barn.  And while he truly cared for these cats, he had many other cats to care for and he was retired with limited finances.  But this man had such empathy for the plight of these two cats.  He could not justify spending the money to treat these two stray cats when treatment was far from guaranteed at being successful and he had many more mouths to feed.  He could not see them living their lives in pain either.  So in the end, he asked me to euthanize the cats.  He truly loved all his cats and was holding back tears the day he brought them to the clinic.  The decision was not easy.  To this day, I think he is one of the bravest people I have ever met.   I have such great respect for him for not letting these cats live out their lives in excruciating pain.  Little did I know at the time how I would be faced with a similar decision in my own life.

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I live on a farm and like most of my rural neighbors, I too have a collection of barn cats.  Years ago, I had a three legged house cat, but for reasons I won't get into here, I haven't had a house cat since then.  I do like cats though and because there are so many unwanted cats out there, I am OK with a few of them living in my barn and working to keep the rat and mouse population in check in my chicken coop.  They all get fed, spayed or neutered and vaccinated and get month flea prevention.  I make sure they get treated regularly for worms and that each of them gets a little attention and scratch under the chin every day.

One winter day a few years back, a new cat showed up at the feeding station in the barn.  This is not all that unusual.  This cat was particularly scared and would run anytime I would enter the barn.  It took 6 months, but by summer I was able to approach him at the feeding station and stand next to him while he ate.  I knew that he was an intact tom cat.  As with all feral or semi-feral cats that show up on my farm, I am always concocting plans as to how I will catch them.  Some are live trapped, but if I can get near them, I prefer to just pick them up.  And so it was with this cat.  One day I got my cat carrier ready.  I fed the cats and when this latest stray was happily eating, I very gracefully slid my hand to the back of his neck to hold his scruff and in one motion  my other hand reached underneath him to pick him up and put him in the carrier.  Smooth as silk.  I'm good at this.  Unfortunately I'm not perfect.  It did not go as gracefully on the other end.

Off to the clinic I went with my new cat and the usual plan.  He would be tested for Feline Leukemia Virus and Feline Immunodeficiency Virus and if negative would be neutered, vaccinated, dewormed, treated for fleas and then re-released back at my barn.  I carefully got him out of the carrier, but somewhere along the way I slipped up and lost my grip.  This terrified barn cat went on a mad dash around the treatment room at the clinic knocking things off shelves and walls.  Somewhere along the way I got bit trying to catch him.  One of my technicians astutely went and retrieved a large fishing net we keep in the closet and on one of the cat's laps around the room, she expertly caught him in the net.  She is good at this too.  

Everything after this was easy.  I cleaned up my blood that was laying around the clinic.  The cat was sedated and tested negative for FeLV and FIV.  He then got neutered and put in a cage to recover.   While it doesn't happen 100% of the time, I am always amazed at how these scared nearly feral stray cats can turn into a happy friendly cat the next day after being snatched up and neutered.  It happens a lot.  And so it was with this cat.  The day after neutering I opened the cage and ran my hand down his back.  He arched up his back as cats often do when they are being stroked and petted.  His back arching was quite pronounced and so I named him Archie.  After a few days of recovery, I took Archie back home to my barn.  He got along well with my other cats and although he was always a little more skittish than the others, if I was quiet and calm, I could always get him to come to me to be petted if only just for a bit.  One of his trademarks was that before he would come to me to be petted, he would rub his face on anything and everything that was nearby: the posts in the barn, a table leg, the leg of a saw horse, etc.

One day in the second year he lived in my barn, I noticed a little drool coming from the side his mouth.  You can see it in the picture above.  When I went to look in his mouth, he resisted quite a bit.  Although it was not full blown yet, I knew immediately he was developing stomatitis.  He acted fine.  He ate fine.  Except for that very subtle spot of drool that I had seen one time, you would never know by looking at him from the outside what horrible disease was brewing in his mouth.  But I knew because I had looked inside his mouth.  I spent the next couple months in denial because even though I knew what was happening, I am human.  One day Archie came up to me to be petted and would not even rub his face on anything along the way.  I could ignore his disease no longer.  Although I could run my hand down his back, he would run if I put my hand anywhere near his face.  I had a hard time being as brave as my client with two barn cats from a few years earlier.  I thought about putting forth the effort to extract all his teeth.  It might work.  It might not.  I thought about how many healthy cats there out there looking for a home.  I thought about how much pain Archie was living with every day.  It thought about a lot of things.  It took me longer than it should have to summon the courage for a decision.  There were many reasons involved in my decision, but I knew I could not bear to watch this cat be in pain.  I chose to euthanize him.

The disease that Archie had in his mouth was extreme.  My main reason for telling his story is to illustrate how much cats can hide pain.  Archie's disease did not suddenly appear overnight.  It was a process that took place over many many months.  In the early months, the signs of his pain were extremely subtle.  And while extreme cases like Archie's occur only occasionally, every day at the clinic I see cats coming in with all sorts of broken teeth, rotten teeth, gum disease, etc and almost across the board none of them are outwardly showing any symptoms.  One thing I can say for sure though is that all of these cats are in pain.  You may ask, if they are not showing any outward symptoms, how am I so sure they are in pain?  I am sure because 99 times out of 100, when I cure a cat of its mouth disease by pulling a bad tooth or other treatment I will get a follow up report from the owner that goes something like this:  "My cat hasn't played with his toy like this in years."  or "Well he was sleeping a lot, but I just thought that was what normal cats do.  Now he is up running around the house like a kitten again."

I want to emphasize again that lots of cats have some sort of dental disease, but very few are as severe as what Archie had.  Most are much more simple to treat and to cure.  But don't think that because your cat is seemingly acting normal that it does not have dental disease or dental pain.  They hide it so well.  They truly do suffer in silence.  This is why annual exams in cats are so important.  We are care takers of our animals and it is our duty to make sure they live as pain-free a life as possible.

Lumps and bumps part 2: lump-be-gone

In part one I talked mostly about benign lumps such as lipomas, fatty tumors, that can often be left alone unless they are causing a specific problem.  This blog is dedicated to lumps that should not be left alone.  As a veterinarian, it makes me sad when I see a pet brought into the clinic with a tumor that has grown too large to be removed.  Usually the history given to me is that the growth showed up about a year ago and didn't look too bad.  Then it suddenly started to grow over the last week or two and by the time the pet is brought in for an exam it is either too late to do anything or if surgery is possible it would be so extensive that a referral to a board certified surgeon is necessary.  This is especially true of lumps and bumps on legs.  Remember that when a surgeon cuts a lump off an animal almost always they will have to remove the skin over the lump as well.  On legs especially, there is just not enough loose skin available to cover the surgical wound at least without using some special techniques. It is so much easier to just remove a leg lump when it is small.

As I mentioned in Part 1, I think part of the hesitation about bringing a pet in for an exam to have a lump checked is that we as humans are all afraid of getting a bad diagnosis.  But the good thing about lumps on the outside of the body where they can be seen is that we can do something about them early and that can lead to a good outcome.  Within the past year, I said goodbye to two of patients that will always remind me of what is possible by taking care of cancerous lumps earlier rather than later.  Both patients were diagnosed with cancer.  Buddy had a fairly aggressive mast cell tumor diagnosed in 2008.  Buddy actually had two surgeries to remove his cancer.  Daisy Mae had mammary gland (breast) cancer in 2007 and had a partial mastectomy.  Buddy and Daisy Mae both lived to around 16 years of age which is a fine lifetime for a dog.  I have no doubt that both their lives would have been considerably shorter if they had not had surgery early on to remove their cancerous tumors.

Buddy at age 16  

Gosh I love old dogs.

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of Daisy Mae, but I do want to discuss mammary cancer in dogs for just a bit.  There are many things unknown in our lives, but one thing that has been proven is that if you get a dog spayed before she is two years old, you can really decrease the risk of mammary cancer later in life.  Because of a dog's anatomy, a female dog has on average 10 mammary glands or a chain of 5 on each side, plus or minus.  Sometimes dogs will develop mammary cancer in multiple glands and when that happens, a complete mastectomy is done.  First one side and then the other if appropriate.  A female dog's mammary chain runs from the "armpit" area under the front leg all the back to the groin under the rear leg.  That means to get all the cancer, a surgeon has to make a VERY long incision.  It looks like this.

This little dog was 8 years old, not spayed and never used for breeding.  All this pain and suffering, and nearly always preventable by spaying while young.  Fortunately for this dog, she had an owner that was willing to treat her disease before it became inoperable.  If she makes it one year, she has a very good chance of her mammary cancer being gone for good.

The moral of Part 1 and Part 2 of the lumps and bumps blog?  If your pet  has a lump and you don't know what it is, please have it checked out sooner rather than later.  Time is ticking.

Lumps and bumps part 1: Do you want to see a one pound lipoma?

I have learned a couple of things from blogging.  Number one, the first picture contained in a blog post is often the thumbnail that is used by other web sites when a linked back to the blog.  Number two is that some people don't enjoy looking at gross pictures of tumors and body parts.  I can't quite figure out why someone wouldn't want to look at something as fascinating as a one pound lipoma, but I accept that some people really do feel that way whenever I show someone a recently removed tumor and they turn white as a ghost and leave the room.  Oh well.  I guess the fact that I am fascinated by how things look underneath that covering of skin makes me well suited to being a surgeon.  And so to kick off this blog about tumors and lumps and bumps, I give you a picture of my dog Buddy.  He is lot cuter than a one pound lipoma anyway.

Onward to the blog about lumps.  I decided to write this blog because I have seen a few tumors lately where owners ignored a lump on their dog until the lump was so big or so aggressive that nothing could be done to save the dog's life.  I don't know quite why people wait so long, but it is not uncommon.  Sometimes it is money, but many times it is not.  Maybe it's that we all get busy with other things in our lives or there is some underlying fear that the lump may be something bad, but it is a common human reaction to put things off until they jump up and bite us.  So I thought I would share some examples of when lumps can be ignored and when they can't and how some lumps can be prevented and how some cancers in our pets can truly be cured.  Part 1 will be dedicated to benign lumps that can sometimes be left alone except when they are in bad locations or get really large.

Lumps and bumps are really common especially in dogs.  Lumps can be caused by infections (e.g. abscesses) or irritations (e.g. lick granulomas - that's a good one to type into a Google Image search) or lumps can be caused by abnormal growth of cells (tumors).  Tumors can be either benign or cancerous.

The case of the one pound lipoma

definition of lipoma = a benign tumor made of fatty tissue

Lipomas are one of the most common tumors we see in dogs.  They are benign although there is a cancerous counterpart called a liposarcoma, but those are relatively rare.  Most lipomas occur along the side or the lower part of the chest or the belly, but I have seen them on legs or the head on occasion.  One time I removed a lipoma from the side of a Labrador Retriever's head that was literally as big as the lab's head.  It looked like the dog had two heads.  This dog had been adopted from the local shelter with this growth and his new owners were kind enough to have this monstrous growth removed.  I just want to give people a big hug when they take on a senior dog from a shelter with a problem.

Some dogs get so many lipomas during their middle age to senior years that it would be impossible to remove them all.  Retrievers are especially noted for getting lots of lots of these growths as they get older. These growths are not painful, but if they grow in a bad spot, they can cause difficulty walking or moving.  Because lipomas are common growths that don't bother dogs very much, they are one type of tumor that is often left alone.  They can however get quite large.  My personal record was an 11 pound lipoma that I removed off the side of the flank of a dog.  The dog weighed (after surgery) 17 pounds.  That tumor was nearly 2/3rds of the dog's post-surgery weight.  Holy lipoma batman!

Some lipomas are soft and others have a more firm feel to them.  Some of them are quite easy to determine where they stop and where normal tissue starts.  Others "infiltrate" into normal surrounding body fat.  Through experience, most veterinarians can tell you whether they think a lump is a lipoma or not and most of the time they will be right.  But the truth is that none of us can truly know what kind of lump your pet may have without a biopsy (taking a sample of the cells from a growth and looking at them under a microscope).  And the other truth is that there are some cancerous growths that can feel identical to lipomas.  Hemangiopericytomas and mast cell tumors are two examples and those two growths can be very difficult to deal with especially if you let them get big.  I will say that I don't necessarily recommend a biopsy of every single "lipoma-like" lump, but there are times when I think it is a very good idea.

Teddy was a retriever that came to see me because his owners noticed a swelling in his upper thigh on the inside.  By feeling it I could tell it was a mass of some sort so the next step was to do a needle biopsy.  A needle biopsy (fine needle aspirate) is done by sticking a small needle into the lump and sucking out some of the cells with a syringe.  The cells can then be put on a slide and looked at under a microscope.  Needle biopsies are not nearly as accurate as taking a whole slice out of  a lump, but the nice thing is that most dogs don't need any sedation to get a needle biopsy sample.   Some tumors are really hard to diagnose with a needle biopsy but lipomas are pretty easy most of the time.  I did a needle biopsy on Teddy's lump and the report came back it was a lipoma. We decided to leave it alone for several reasons.  It was in kind of a bad spot to remove, it wasn't causing him any symptoms and because I knew it was a lipoma, I also knew that if it got a little bigger it would not be much harder to remove than it already was.

Teddy did just fine, but about 10 months later, his owners noticed that the lipoma was getting bigger and it was starting to affect how Teddy was using his rear leg.  We decided to remove the lipoma.  I was happy that this lipoma was one of the non-invasive kind and even though it was in a really bad location, it came out relatively easily.  As is typical of growths that are a little larger than average, I like to get them weighed and photographed.  And so here is a one pound lipoma hanging out next to a regular sized Sharpie for size comparison.

Even though lipomas are abnormal growths of fat cells, they are fat cells none the less. If you are carrying a little extra weight, just think about 10, 20, 30 or more of these little buggers hiding out under your skin.  I know I think about it every time I have that extra slice (or two or three) of pizza on a Saturday night.  Certainly gives me some motivation to get out and ride my bike.

Enough about lipomas.  Next blog is part 2 about lumps that should not be left alone.

Does your pet have a waistline?

Earlier this week, Jana Rade over at the Dawg Business Blog made a post to kick off the "Show Off Your Dog's Waistline Campaign".  (If you follow the link to her blog post, she has a nice body condition chart for dogs and cats.)  For those of us who spend our lives trying to improve the lives of pets, I think she is really on to one of the biggest hurdles in getting someone to buy into a weight loss program for their dog or cat.  Depending on the study you read, right now in the United States, it is estimated that between 40-60% of all pets are overweight or obese.  As the number of obese pets increases, the number of normal weight pets decrease and people start to forget what a normal weight pet looks like.  When you look at your pet from above, they should have an hour glass figure with a distinct "waistline".  When you look at your pet from the side, the belly should "tuck" up toward the rear legs.  I cannot count the number of times that I walk into an exam room and have a conversation something like this:

Me: "Why Mrs. Smith, your dog Lucky looks so AWESOME!  His weight is perfect!  You should really be proud of how you are feeding him!"

Mrs. Smith: "Really?  Don't you think he is too skinny?  Everyone tells me that Lucky is way too skinny."

Me:  "Absolutely not!  Lucky is the PERFECT weight.  You are suppose to be able to feel his ribs, but if you look at him, his backbone and his hips are NOT sticking out where you can see them.  He looks great.!"

Mrs. Smith: "Oh thank goodness because everyone in my family yells at me and tells me I should be feeding him more."

There is so much pressure on owners to feed their pets too much.  And because normal weight pets are slowly becoming the minority, everyone starts to think that pudgy is the new normal.

So  I am going to post some pictures of my "triplets" and I am going to give some examples of what I do to keep them normal weight.  I'll also see how many comments I get that my dogs are too skinny.  And to give a little background, I own three 13" beagles although one is a little below standard.  Two came from the local animal shelter and one came from a friend of a family member looking to re-home one of his dogs.  All three are house dogs and like most dogs they do not get a lot of exercise during the week when I work.  However I have a strong belief that working and sporting breeds of dogs need lots of exercise to maintain their physical and mental health.  In my case I feel blessed that I own a farm and so I spend many hours on the weekends and during the week if I have a day off taking the beagles out to the woods to run rabbits.  I love letting these dogs enjoy an activity that they were bred to do.  They do get way more exercise in the fall, winter and spring than in the summer when it is too warm for them to run.  So right now, they are typically at their lowest weight of the year and they all gain about one pound in the summer.  

As you can see, I too am a bit defensive about my dogs' weights because like most owners of thin dogs, I get comments thrown my way about my dogs being too thin.  Well, my dogs can also run rabbits for 3 or more hours per day and come back to the house and want to play some more with each other.  They are truly physically fit.

Now on the pictures.  Each dog has a top view to show the hour glass waistline and each dog has a side view to show the "abdominal tuck".   And a big thank you to my vet assistant Sarah who helped by holding my dogs for me so I could take their pictures.  Since I have trained my dogs to sit for almost everything I do to them, we had a heck of a time getting them to stand straight for the side view.  Ha!  They all wanted to tuck their rear ends under and sit down.  The expression on some their faces was that of being totally confused.  Poor puppies having to endure a photo shoot!

Gabby, age unknown but probably 10+ years.  Weight 20.6 pounds.

OK, so it is kind of hard to see her abdominal tuck since she is trying to sit down.

Next is Dottie, 7 years old.  Weight 17.1 pounds.  She is my small below standard beagle.

And last but not least is Buddy, 3 years old.  Weight 22.2 pounds.

I should also mention that all three of these dogs are spayed or neutered.  So here is some things I do to keep them slim and trim:

• I do not feed what the dog food bag says to feed.  In fact, I don't even know what the dog food bag says to feed.  I feed my dogs to maintain a certain weight no matter what that amount of dog food turns out to be.  In fact my smallest beagle eats almost 40% more food than the larger two beagles.  It is what it is.
• I do not feed my dogs the same amount of food every single day.  If they exercise more, they get more food.  If they exercise less, they get less food.
• I weigh my dogs often, at least monthly.  Since I see them every single day, it is hard for me to pick up on small changes in body weight unless I put them on a scale.  If their weight goes up, I feed less for awhile.  If their weight goes down, I increase the amount of food they get fed.
• They get a combination of both dry and canned food.  Dry food for my convenience.  Canned food for two reasons.  First because it is higher in protein than dry food and I really do believe that protein helps satisfy appetite better than a higher carbohydrate diet like dry food diets.  Also since canned food contains more water than dry food, there are actually less calories per volume of canned food than an equal volume of most dry foods.  This way I can trick my human brain into thinking I am feeding them more.
• I break all treats that I buy into small pieces.  The only time I feed whole treats is when I snack the dogs after a long run outside.  Other than that, they only get pieces of treats.
• I give them lots of exercise.  This time of year a short walk is one hour.  An average walk is two hours.  Three hours is not uncommon.  They do take a summer break so when I first start them back on to an exercise program in the fall, we start with 30 minute walks and gradually increase time.  Owners of short nosed breeds of dogs and dogs who are out of shape or overweight, need to be very careful about the amount of exercise they give their dogs, but just keep in mind that exercise is important.

Hope that helps some and a big thanks to Jana on putting a positive spin on promoting healthy weight of our pets and starting the "Show Off Your Dog's Waistline Campaign".

Dude

I finally have a moment to sit down and do a little thinking and typing.  This post is what I call a "feel good story".  Sometimes I have to retrieve a feel good story from the recesses of my brain when the stress of dealing with sick patients and death starts taking a toll.  The days on end of dealing with incurable diseases and euthanasia can weigh a person down.  But then there are those patients that come along and teach us that at least some of the time we can make a difference.

Dude came into my life this past August.  It was a Friday and our receptionist received a frantic call from one of our clients saying that he was bringing in a very sick cat right now.  When he got to the clinic, he told us everything he knew.  Dude was a cat that belonged to one of his renters.  The cat had gotten outside and had been missing for 6 days.  The client had just found the cat laying on the floor of his outside shop.  

Dude was about as close to being dead as a cat can get without being dead.  He was laying flat on his side and only his breathing told me he was still alive.  He would cry out when I touched him though.  He was cold and about as stiff as a board.  His body temperature was 95F (normal in a cat is around 101-102F).  He had a huge old rotting wound over his right shoulder and his entire right front leg was swollen shoulder to toes and oozing smelly fluid from multiple spots.  The only reason there were no maggots involved was that we were right in the middle of the 2012 midwest summer drought and there were no flies around and about.  Dude had other wounds as well.  There were some on his head.  There were even more to found hiding beneath his thick fur in the next day or two.  He smelled like a dead rotting animal.

So now decision time.  The actual owner of the cat did not have money for any treatment at all, but Dude had fate on his side.  The client who brought Dude to the clinic really liked this cat and felt bad for the owner who was a single mom with a very sweet daughter who was mentally handicapped.  He offered to pay for Dude's medical care, but there would not be unlimited funds available and transfer to a 24 hour care facility could not be part of the plan.  This is one of those times when you want to throw everything but the kitchen sink at a case, but can't.  This is when you do the best you can with what you have available.

IV fluids, various and sundry drugs, and active warming was begun.  By Saturday morning, Dude was showing signs of being a live cat, still smelly, but alive.  His wounds were bathed and some of the dead skin on his shoulder was starting to slough off.  By Saturday evening, Dude was able to lay upright on his chest instead of laying flat out on his side.  It was becoming apparent though that he suffered some kind of spinal cord trauma.  He could move all his legs, but was unable to stand up.   He wouldn't eat on his own, but he readily accepted some food offered to him out of a feeding syringe.

Sunday morning came with more improvement.  Dude was starting to get a little feisty and he ate just a little on his own.  Unable to stand at all, he was starting to drag himself around the floor some.  His wounds were bathed again on Sunday and more skin was sloughing off.  By Sunday night he was eating on his own.

On Monday his owners came to visit.  Dude was still unable to stand, but he was eating on his own and was urinating on his own.  After one more hydrotherapy session in the tub to cleanse his wounds, the owners decided to take Dude home.

As is always the case, more healing happens at home than at the hospital.  Dude's owners provided excellent nursing care.  Within 3 days Dude was taking his first steps at home and started using the litterbox on his own.  I saw Dude in the office about 2 weeks after he went home.  He was fully mobile and up and walking normally.  The skin over his shoulder wound was nearly closed.  He still has a little swelling in his leg, but overall he looked amazing.  Snatched from the jaws of death as the saying goes.

This story isn't just mine.  Saving Dude's life was indeed a team effort.  From the man who found him, brought him to the clinic and then paid the bill to the hardworking staff at the clinic that bathed, fed and tended to all of Dude's medical needs in the hospital and finally to Dude's owner who provided such loving care after he went home. And so Dude has become somewhat of a mascot for making a difference here at the clinic.  Whenever we have those tough days, Dude's name always seems to surface.  And that is the power of the "feel good story".  I hope each and everyone of you out there have your own personal "feel good stories" that make you smile and feel better when you are having a blue day.  At the end of the day, every single one of us makes a difference in this life.  We sometimes just need a little reminder from time to time.

Parking Lot Catastrophe Prevention

This blog is dedicated to all the lost cats who are running loose in the woods behind the vet clinic where I work.  Yes, it happened again this past week.  Well it's not a weekly occurrence, but it does happen a handful of times every year.   The latest episode goes something like this.  A client was attempting to carry their cat in their arms from the parking lot into the clinic.  A dog that was inside a parked car barked.  The cat got scared and escaped its owner's grasp.  Cat runs far far away.  The owner goes after the cat and tries to call it (good luck with that one with a scared cat in a strange environment).  There are infinite places to hide in the great outdoors and the cat is never seen again.  For the life of me, I do not understand why anyone would bring their cat to a strange location and not have them confined inside a carrier.  I feel so bad for people who lose their cats in this way, but it is so preventable.


There are really no good reasons for not having a cat carrier.  Years back they were a little pricey, but nowadays you can pick up a really decent carrier for under $20.  If you can afford to have a cat, you can afford to have a carrier.


The biggest complaint I get from owners is that they have a really hard time getting their cat into the carrier.  Well I am going to share a tip that is going to make loading your cat into a carrier as easy as pie.  Step 1: make your cat's carrier part of the household furniture.  If you are anal retentive about how your house looks, first you should not have a cat.  A cat comes along with hair covered furniture and the occasional pile of hair induced vomit that seems to end up in just the right spot on the floor so it squishes between your toes when you are stumbling your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  But lets say you can live with furry couch cushions and slimy cat food between your toes, but you don't want to be tripping over that carrier everyday.  Well this is the time to get creative.  I'll bet with a little thought, a cat carrier strategically placed and decorated can fit into any decor.  If you have a dog, you may want to place the carrier up off the floor (you will see why in step 2).


Step 2: Now that the cat carrier is part of the living space, this is where you are going to feed your cat.  Every day.  Forever.  And always.  Now I will warn you that if you have multiple cats that don't get along at feeding time, you may have to put out a couple carriers or work out other creative solutions, but for most folks, this works well.  And it looks something like this.


Feeding time at my household:

Cat food goes into a dish and into the carrier and Voila!

Even when it is not feeding time, I never have problems getting a cat into the carrier because they are in the carrier multiple times a day every day of their lives.  There is no fear.


And as a bonus I have a tip in case you have a cat that needs to be moved from point A to point B and you for some reason do not have a carrier.  Enter the old pillow case.  I learned this back in my farm vet days in Pennsylvania although really it was usually a cloth feed sack and only occasionally a pillow case.  I was a vet in the 1980's when Pennsylvania enacted its state law that every dog and every cat HAD to have a rabies vaccination.  We would hold these rabies vaccination clinics on Saturdays.  I think it cost $5 to get your dog or cat vaccinated.  We'd have traffic lined up for quite a ways down the state route where our vet practice was located.  But what I remember most was how many farmers caught up these mostly feral barn cats and hauled them to the clinic to get vaccinated.  The farmers would put on a pair of leather work gloves at home, catch the cat and stuff it in an old burlap feed sack or a pillow case.   Many of these cats were so wild that we would vaccinate them right through the feed sack without even opening it up.  A needle goes through cloth just as easily as it does skin.  These cats were quiet and subdued inside the sack and while traveling away from home in a truck was stressful I am sure, these cats were calmly vaccinated with no freaking out and no wounds inflicted on any people.  Crazy stuff, but what a great lesson for a young veterinarian.   I don't know why I get so much resistance with this method because it works REALLY well.  The cat is confined and can breathe and dang, it just works.


Back to cat transportation via pillow case.  After you find a pillow case, next you find a cat.  I will purposely demonstrate with the cat on the left because she can be hard for me to handle at times.

Slip the cat into the pillow case all the way.  Most cats are not afraid of cloth like objects because they sleep, shed and throw up on them all the time.  They usually like to crawl into dark spaces (think boxes or paper grocery sacks) so most cats will not resist going inside a pillow case.   I would suggest not using a really thin pillow case though because I have seen cats shred through them, but most cats will just sit there.  Get them inside as much as you can and then pick up the pillow case so they slip all the way to the bottom.  Make sure to tie the pillow case shut.

And there you have a perfect cat carrier in a pinch.  Next is a picture of Miss Louise right after I let her back out.  And in case you think that I could do anything I want with this cat, I purposely chose the cat on the left because she IS kind of skittish at times and I DO have trouble catching her at times.  The cat on the right would not be fair because I literally could do anything to that cat if I wanted.  But Louise can be a challenge.  Thank goodness for catching her during sleepy moments.

Although she was a little perturbed that her nap was interrupted, Louise did not immediately run away even though I picked her up in the pillow case and carried her around for a bit before letting her out.  And this cat WILL run away when I let go of her if I do something to her that she does not like such as her monthly flea/heartworm prevention or a session with the grooming comb.  I won't say this method works for 100% of cats because nothing does, but it works for most and works well.  Just remember to use a sturdy pillow case.  One extra caution, I probably wouldn't use this on a really really sick cat or one that was having trouble breathing.  Get yourself a carrier.


And there you go.  Two methods for getting your cat safely to the vet clinic or anywhere else without risking the parking lot catastrophe.  There is nothing worse then losing a cat miles from home.

Ticks: They're here and they're not going away!

Your first question may be why is there a picture of some chickens on a blog about ticks?  The answer is quite simple.  I hate ticks.  I don't want to look at them.  So since I don't want to look at them, I figured some of you reading this blog may feel the same.  So here is a picture of some of my chickens.  Although there are other fowl who are perhaps a little better at picking up and eating ticks, chickens are known to eat a few themselves and as far as I am concerned, the only good tick is an eaten tick. I now I can open this blog and happily look at the chickens foraging through the weeds eliminating ticks from this planet.  If you really want to look at some ticks, at the end I will post a really good link with lots of good tick info (identification, how to remove ticks, etc) and a video that talks about black legged ticks (deer ticks) and shows how to remove a tick.


It seems like not a day goes by that the staff at the clinic doesn't field a question or two or three about ticks.  Many of these questions are a source of mild amusement to me.  But don't worry there truly is no such thing as a dumb question except for the one that is not asked.  If I chuckle at your question, it is only because I was once you.  I TOTALLY get where you are coming from because remember, I hate ticks.


I did not grow up with ticks.  I don't think I even saw a tick until I was well into my twenties.  In fact, in my mind ticks were just slow moving spiders and I was terrified of spiders in my youth.  I ran into minor tick encounters when I lived in Columbus, Ohio, but this was only one or two here and there.  And then I graduated vet school and started work at a mixed animal veterinary practice in rural southwestern Pennsylvania.  Of course back then, Lyme Disease was not an issue and the primary tick that we had to deal with was the American Dog Tick, but there were lots of them.  I remember farm dogs walking in the clinic with perhaps 100 or more ticks on them and having engorged female ticks falling off on to the floor as the dog walked through the building.  It was all I could do to not run out of the exam room screaming every time I saw a tick.  But alas, that would not have been very professional and so I sucked up my fear and got over it.  I got a lot of practice removing ticks.  But deep inside, ticks still fill me with disgust.  I'm just really good at hiding it these days.


When I moved to rural northeast Ohio in 1995, I could breathe a huge sigh of relief.  Ticks in this part of the country were few and far between.  But that all changed in 2010.  That was the year that tick reports at the clinic where I worked doubled and they have been going up and up ever since.  That was the year that the black legged tick (deer tick) started showing up in Ashtabula County.  And sorry to say my friends, but there is no going back.  Our days of living the free and easy tick-free life are over.  Time to suck it up and get used to living with these little buggers.


So remember, as I chuckle my way through answers to your questions I am not laughing at you, I am laughing at me.  Because I was you at one time.  And because if I don't laugh, I think I may cry because I hate ticks.


Here are some of the typical questions that I get during a day's work:


My dog had a tick on him and now there is a pimple like lump.  What should I do?  The answer: not much. These nasty critters will leave a small hard lump in the skin where they were attached.  This is normal.  It is kind of like a superty duperty mosquito bite and will sometimes last a couple of weeks.  It will go away.  


I took a tick off my dog and I think the head may have broken off and still be in the skin.  What should I do?  The answer: not much.  If you can see for sure that the head is there, you can grab it with tweezers or something similar and pull it out. If you can't see it, more than likely it is not there.  I find most of the time people think the mouth parts are still there because they feel the hard lump in the skin.  The hard lump is normal even if the tick is removed head and all.  The main reason for wanting to remove the entire tick is to lessen the chance of transmitting disease.  I have heard that in people, leaving the tick's head behind can cause infection, but I can honestly say I have never seen a tick bite on a dog that has gotten infected.  Not to say it can't happen, but it is very rare.  Fortunately, we have primarily dog ticks and black legged ticks around here and they are pretty easy to remove intact unlike their southern cousin the Lone Star tick that has deeply embedded mouth parts.  If you do leave mouth parts behind in the dog's skin, the dog's body will react to it and spit it out in a few days.  Most tick bites in dogs do not itch or bother the dog at all, so if your dog is scratching at a tick bite, that MIGHT be a sign of mild infection.  Call your veterinarian if the skin is red, raw or oozing.


I found 3 ticks on my dog.  What should I do?  The answer: count your blessings.  Remember my story about seeing farm dogs with 100+ ticks on them?  3, 4, 5, 6 ticks, that ain't nothing!  And get used to it because these things are not going way.  On the serious side, if you find ticks on your dog or cat, then you should be practicing some form of tick prevention.  Call your veterinarian.  There are a few different methods of preventing ticks and we can tell you the pros and cons of each.  And remember, some tick preventatives for dogs can kill cats.  So be careful!  Don't use a dog product on a cat.  Use only cat labeled products on cats.


My neighbor told me that I should not have removed the tick myself, but should have taken it to my vet to have the tick removed.  Is that true?  The answer: we are more than happy to remove ticks, but the truth is that ticks are very very easy to remove.  I don't know where all the mystery about tick removal came from, but it is easy folks.  There is a little bit of technique involved, but it is basically grasp and pull (see the video below for a visual guide to removing ticks).  No hot matches, no Vaseline, no finger nail polish.  All you need is something to grasp (tweezers, hemostats - my favorite, tick removal tool) or even your fingers are OK if you wear gloves.  While we may only have to deal with a tick here and there, the time is coming when we all will have to deal with ticks in much higher numbers.  Like I said, we are more than happy to have you bring in your dog and show you how to remove ticks, but you need to learn.  Otherwise, you will be at our office every day at certain times of the year.


My dog got bit by a tick and my neighbor told me I should take my dog to the vet and get it started on antibiotics.  Is that true?  The answer: no it's not true.  Can ticks cause disease that is treated with antibiotics?  yes.  But remember, most ticks, at least in Ashtabula County, do not carry any diseases.  Even if a tick does carry a disease, there are a whole bunch of factors that come into play for a dog to get that disease from the tick. In some areas, if we treated a dog that got tick bites, that dog would be on antibiotics the whole year round and that is not a smart idea either.  The better solution is to watch your dog for signs of illness.  Usually the illness will show up weeks to months after the tick bite.  Watch for things like lethargy and wanting to sleep a lot.  Poor appetite and fever.  Swollen joints and limping.  Then call your vet.  It is true that the sooner treatment is started the better chances are of curing the dog, but it makes little sense to start antibiotics after any tick bite.


For more information on ticks, the Ohio Division of Wildlife has a nice informative web page that discusses everything from tick identification to how to remove a tick. The page also discusses some common myths about ticks.  Follow the link below.


Ohio Division of Wildlife Ticks In Ohio


And for your viewing pleasure, I'll post this video about ticks. It is titled "Beware of ticks in winter", but has some really good information about black legged ticks as well as showing how to remove ticks.  Good info here and well worth the 8 minutes to watch.

What were they thinking?

I am sitting here writing this blog entry on the night before a meeting of the Safety Council of the largest city in the county where I live.  That would be the city of Ashtabula in Ashtabula County, Ohio in case you are curious.  The city of Ashtabula currently has a law in place that bans ownership of "pit bull" dogs within the city.  According to my sources, one of the topics that will be discussed at tomorrow's meeting of the Safety Council is the fate of this law.  There are some very good people who are trying to get the ban against pit bulls abolished and I applaud their efforts.  This topic is especially relevant because of what happened yesterday during my work day at the clinic.  I had one of those moments in life where you think about a particular law that is in place and say to yourself "What were they thinking?".


I walked into the clinic yesterday morning and my surgery case I had scheduled for the day had already been admitted to the hospital.  The dog's owners are very nice people.  The dog I am sorry to say is not so nice.  Oh it may be nice to people that it knows, but it is not so nice when it is around the strange workings of a veterinary hospital.  Some dogs come to the vet office and are what I call "eternally happy".  This is the majority of dogs we see.  They wag their tails and love being petted.  Some dogs come to the vet office and are fearful, but even though they are scared, they sit still and just wait for the horrible experience to be over.  These dogs will often warm up to us if we are slow and take time to get to know them.  Then there are the fearful dogs that do not back down.  These dogs are a small minority, but they do present certain challenges.  They have learned that if they are scared of strangers and if they attack then the strange people will go away.  These dogs are dangerous and such was the case with the dog that was in for surgery yesterday morning.  This dog would just as soon eat my face, my technician's face or any other face of a strange person at a vet hospital.  It didn't help that the dog weighed about 100 pounds to boot.  Fortunately I work with some of the most talented animal handlers on the planet and we were able to get a muzzle on and treat this dog with what I call "no muss, no fuss".  The dog did not freak out at all and no one got bit.  But in spite of an uneventful visit to the vet, this dog is dangerous.  It is not however a pit bull so anyone that lives in the city of Ashtabula, Ohio could legally own this 100 pounds of accident waiting to happen.


My last appointment of the day was a stray dog that was rescued off the streets of Cleveland.  The dog was pregnant at the time of rescue and a wonderful woman who lives in my neighborhood took her in.  This woman has rescued many dogs and is very good at placing rescued dogs in good homes.  The dog had her puppies and Momma dog and her pups are being cared for until the puppies are old enough to be placed into new homes.  Then momma dog will be spayed and she too will find a new home.  Anyway, momma dog came to the clinic to get her vaccinations.  I walked in the exam room and she immediately walked over to me, wagging her tail and wanted to be petted.  I sat on the floor with her and she licked my face.  Then she rolled over next to me so I could rub her belly.  This dog was in that first category of dog that I talked about.  She was "eternally happy".  I did a physical exam while avoiding the slurping tongue.  I administered three vaccinations while she happily ate treats out of my assistant's hand and without any restraint at all.  Momma dog was one of the friendliest dogs I have ever met and I have met a lot of dogs.  Momma dog is a pit bull.  She cannot be adopted by anyone  who lives in the city of Ashtabula.


And so there is my "What were they thinking moment?".  If I lived in a city neighborhood and had a choice between my neighbor owning the 100# accident waiting to happen or the friendly pit bull, is there any question what I would choose?  Or what any sane person would choose?


I always wonder how a city council votes for a breed specific ban in the first place.  If I were on a city council and I was getting ready to make a new law, I would consult with people who were experts on the topic.  If I were making a law concerning, let's say, safety of drinking water, I would consult with people who have degrees and work in the field of water quality and public health.  If I were making a law concerning education, I would consult teachers and other educators.  Who would I contact if I were considering enacting a law concerning dogs?  Well, that would be dog experts such as veterinarians, trainers and those who run animal shelters to name a few.  I would not ask the public.  I would not ask the police department.  They are not experts on dogs.  And the funny thing is that almost across the board, dog experts are against banning specific breeds of dogs.  So how do these laws get passed in the first place?  Someone is obviously not listening to experts on the subject.


Things that have happened in the past though are just that: in the past.  Wrongs can be righted.  The State of Ohio just recently removed the words "pit bull" from the state's dangerous dog law.  It is time for local communities to step up and do the same.  You don't ban cars because some people are dangerous drivers and you don't ban specific breeds because some people own dangerous dogs.

H.B. 14 January 25, 2012 update: Ohio vicious dog law

Way back last year, I wrote about Ohio House Bill 14 that would remove the word "pit bull" from Ohio's vicious dog law.  This bill NEEDS to be passed.  Ohio is the only state in the U.S. that specifically names a breed of dog in the vicious dog law.  The original wording of this bill got passed umpteen years ago and like all things in government, it is taking eons to fix this mistake. 

You can find my original blog post here.  If you are in too much of a hurry to read the entire post, I think the last paragraph sums up the gist of why H.B. 14 needs to pass:

This is an important issue to all dog owners. If the pit bull is specifically named in the law now, what will keep Rottweilers, German Shepherds, Dobermans, Akitas etc from being added. All of us as dog owners have a stake in this. Treat dangerous dogs harshly, but treat them as individuals.

The bill is progressing through the legislative process.  It has made it through its initial committee and the Ohio House.  It has made it through the Ohio Senate committee just a couple a weeks ago.  The next step is a vote by the full senate.  It was suppose to make it to the Senate floor yesterday, but it did not.  All expectations are that it will be heard and voted on by the Senate in the next few weeks.  The next general session is next Tuesday on January 31st.

I'm asking everyone who lives in Ohio and especially dog owners to call your Ohio Senator and tell them you support Ohio H.B. 14.  A few links below to help you out.

Find your Senator here.

Link to Ohio House Bill 14

General information on efforts to stop breed specific legislation

This bill may be voted on very soon.  The time to call or email your Ohio State Senator is now.  Fingers crossed that this bill makes it through the Senate.  It is important to every one of us who owns a dog.

Dogs with bad backs - Emmett's story

I've heard it said that 80% of people will experience back pain at some time in their lives.  While back problems are not as common in dogs as they are in people, they are still one of the more common conditions that a small animal veterinarian will treat.  Today's blog is about Emmett.  This cute little dog is up and walking around today thanks to his very astute owner and a wonderful surgeon.  (I have told you I like success stories, right?  *grin*)

I saw Emmett for a sudden onset of back pain one Friday last June.  I had to look up the month, but for some reason I can distinctly remember what days of the week this all happened.  Anyway, his mom brought him in on a Friday and I remember how painful Emmett was.  We took some X-rays and confirmed that he indeed had evidence of intervertebral disc disease.  (Click on the link for a very thorough explanation of disc disease in dogs.)  Just like in people with disc disease, pain is caused when a disc, which is the cushion in between the vertebrae, swells and bulges.  And just like in people, almost all dogs will heal with some anti-inflammatory drugs, rest and sometimes muscle relaxers.  Only 5% of dogs need surgery.  Emmett only had pain with his back disease and he did not have any neurologic signs such as weakness in his legs or paralysis.  And so, he got sent home on medical therapy, but I still remember how I thought Emmett seemed more painful than most dogs that I treat with this condition.

Four days later on Tuesday morning, Emmett's mom called to tell us that Emmett started have some weakness in his legs that just started that morning.  Tuesdays are my main surgery day so I was gloved up and working in sterile surgical field when all this was happening.  I remember my wonderful staff relaying messages back and forth between me and Emmett's mom.  At first Emmett's symptoms weren't too bad so it was decided to just wait a bit, but within an hour his weakness was much worse and progressing toward paralysis.  The question then was should Emmett come into the clinic for a recheck?  Well, I've seen symptoms progress this fast before and this is not the time to delay treatment.  We had Emmett's mom come and pick up his X-rays from Friday and go directly to see the veterinary surgeon.  Within hours, Emmett had surgery for a disc in his back that had gone from bulging to ruptured.

The next day, Emmett got sent home from the surgical hospital.  I remember how his mom commented how she was expecting to have to help him walk at least in the beginning as he healed from major back surgery.  When they left the hospital, Emmett walked over to a post and lifted his leg to pee on it.  Amazing.  Emmett is doing well today (although he did have a flare up of back pain a month and half ago but only needed medicine to treat).  Emmett is doing well because his owner was so incredibly on top of what was going on with her dog and also a big thanks go out to the wonderful surgeons and staff at our not-so-local referral hospital.

This is definitely a story of a bad disease where everything went right.  I am always amazed when I have an owner bring in a paralyzed dog and when I ask how long the dog has been this way, they tell me a day, or two, or three, or sometimes more.  Really?  Your dog goes suddenly paralyzed and you wait days to bring it to the veterinarian?  Bulging discs with mild to moderate pain and no weakness of the legs can wait until morning.  Ruptured discs that cause paralysis cannot.  This is definitely a disease where HOURS count.  Not days.  HOURS.  If it happens at night, you don't wait until morning to see your regular veterinarian.  Certainly there are many diseases where a "wait and see" approach is totally acceptable.  This is not one of those.  Even with quick action, not every dog will recover, but most will if treatment is not delayed.  Thanks to Emmett and his "mom" for letting me share his story.  He is a remarkable little dog to be sure.

If I never declaw another cat ......

If I never declaw another cat, I would be a happy veterinarian.  OK, I am a happy veterinarian, but the older I get, the more I dislike doing declaws.  So now I am on a mission to educate cat owners about alternatives to declawing their cats.  We might was well get used to practicing the alternatives now because this is the way the world is going.  There are a whole slew of countries around the world that already make declawing illegal or severely limit the procedure.  I don't see this happening in the United States anytime soon, but the winds of change are swirling around and that is a good thing for cats.

As I was doing some research for this blog topic, I did a little surfing around the web and the array of opinions on both sides is quite interesting.  Everything from declawing is perfectly acceptable to declawing should be criminal.  I wanted to link to some good solid info on alternatives to declawing (scratching post training, nail trimming, Soft Paws, etc) and it took me a good half hour to find a link that didn't start off with a page or two of "you are evil if you have your cat declawed" or "if you are a veterinarian who declaws cats, you are evil".  It's kind of a turn off when you are trying to change someone's opinion, to tell them they are scum of the earth right off the bat.  Kind of human nature to dislike being called a horrible person and I am not so much against declawing to make it a mortal sin.   Finally though, I was successful in finding some "just the facts m'am" information on cat scratching behavior and minimizing damage to the house that I will link to further down the page.

Like most people who get older, I find myself contemplating all sorts of things in life.  I used to give very little thought to declawing cats.  I grew up in a dog household so the fact that cats like to scratch things meant little to me.  When I went to veterinary school twenty-cough-some years ago, we were taught to declaw cats.  There was no discussion.  It was just another procedure that we would need to learn in order to be proficient small animal veterinarians.  I acquired my first cat during my first year practicing veterinary medicine.  She was a sweet little stray calico that a good samaritan had found and brought to the clinic where I worked.  She had a horribly mangled leg that needed amputated.  Since she was such a sweet little cat and seeing as how I didn't have a cat, I volunteered to amputate her mangled leg and take her home.  She would be an indoor cat and as I was dutifully taught, indoor cats sometimes scratch furniture and woodwork and if that was not acceptable, the cat should be declawed.  I don't remember her having any problems with the declaw surgery at all and she lived happily inside my house as a declawed cat until she got intestinal cancer and had to be put to sleep many years later.  At this point, my opinion of declawing cats had not changed much.

It was sometime during my second job as a veterinarian that I started to contemplate things.  Back then, I worked for a veterinarian who did ear crops for clients who owned show dogs.  Fortunately I never had to perform one of those horrible procedures, but I did often have to take stitches out.  Ear flaps are very tender and delicate body parts and while most times, we could just hold puppies to remove sutures, I was surprised at how often we would have to sedate puppies to remove stitches because the ears after surgery were so tender and painful to touch.  I vowed I would never perform an ear crop on a dog.  And this is when I started changing my feelings toward performing painful procedures on animals.  If it is for the animal's benefit that is one thing.  If it is totally cosmetic (like ear crops), that just doesn't sit well with me.

Declawing falls somewhere just shy of cosmetic surgery for me.  On one hand, there is absolutely zero benefit to the cat to get declawed.  On the other hand, I have done a lot of work in animal shelters over my career and know of all the cats that are out there desparately seeking homes or facing death.  I also know there are people who will open their home to a cat or two or three, but only if they are declawed.  That is just the way it is.  There are anti-declawing advocates that will say that I am copping out by performing a surgery that I don't really agree with and to that I say rubbish!  I am for cats being able to live plain and simple.  If declawing gives a cat a life, I can live with myself.  But my hope for the future is to educate, educate, educate and inform cat owners that declawing is a painful procedure and there are alternatives.  I know that my own opinion about declawing has changed overtime.  I have come to recognize declawing for what it is: a painful surgical procedure with not one health benefit to the cat.  So if I can change my own stubborn opinion, I know with a little education I can hopefully persuade others to rethink declawing their cats.

So let the education begin.  First I have to make sure all who want to get their cat declawed understand what the surgery is all about.  The claws cannot be removed without also removing the last bone in every toe that is being declawed.  Declawing is AMPUTATION of the end of the toes X 10 toes in the case of front claws being permanently removed.  Just cannot sugar coat that any which way.

For some, just knowing that fact is enough to turn away from declawing.  But the biggest hurdle is what to do with a cat that wants to use it claws to scratch furniture/woodwork/ carpet, etc and cats DO want to use their claws to varying degrees.  Scratching is a normal behavior.  You cannot get rid of a normal behavior.  You have to redirect it.  You have to do a little work.  Yes, work.  Never did understand why dog owners will go through all sorts of effort to housebreak dogs and teach dogs to do this and that, but cat owners will not teach their cats appropriate scratching behavior.  It is no different.  It does take some effort.  

There are lots of web sites out there that give training tips.  This is one of my favorites because it is complete with pictures and I LOVE pictures.  

How to stop a cat from clawing furniture

If you don't want the hassle of training a cat when and where it can scratch and taking care of things like keeping claws trimmed, perhaps you shouldn't own a cat.  It is simple logic.

If you don't want to listen to loud cock-a-doodle-dooing early in the morning, don't have a rooster.
If you don't want a house full of hair, don't own a dog that sheds.
If you don't want an animal that has claws and might use them on occasion, don't own a cat.
Just think about it.  That is all I ask.