Q: My two young grandchildren are visiting this Easter, and I’d like to get them a special gift. Do you recommend a bunny or a couple of chicks or ducklings?
A: I have a better suggestion: baskets full of marshmallow Peeps, chocolate bunnies and plush toy animals with synthetic fur. Depending on their ages, your grandchildren may also enjoy robotic or virtual pets.
Giving live gifts requires your grandchildren and their parents to make a lifelong commitment to the animals that join their family. Too often, the novelty of Easter pets wears off after a few weeks and the children become bored with them.
When this happens, the pets are taken to a shelter or, worse, abandoned to fend for themselves in the wild. Since bunnies, chicks and ducklings are domestic animals that don’t know how to find food or defend themselves, they suffer before they die.
Rabbits are the most commonly given Easter animals because many parents erroneously believe they make good starter pets for children. In truth, rabbits must be handled gently because their fragile spines break with exuberant play or if they’re dropped. Furthermore, most bunnies don’t like to be held, preferring to sit beside their people.
Domesticated rabbits live indoors and are sterilized to prevent urine spraying and uterine cancer. Their diet and exercise needs are complex, and their living spaces require daily cleaning.
If your grandchildren’s parents are considering Easter pets, recommend they do some research. Good websites for rabbits are http://makeminechocolate.org/ and https://rabbit.org/. To learn about caring for chickens, visit https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/adopting-and-caring-backyard-chickens. Information on ducks is available at https://www.caringpets.org/how-to-take-care-of-a-pet-duck/.
If the parents decide you may give Easter pets to your grandchildren, adopt from a shelter or rescue organization, and treat the family to their first appointment with a veterinarian who regularly sees that species.
Q: When my dog Missy suddenly got sick, the veterinarian diagnosed a uterine infection and said she needed emergency surgery to remove her pus-filled uterus. The surgery was successful, and Missy is back home full of energy again. How common are uterine infections in dogs? Could I have prevented it?
A: The medical term for a uterine infection is pyometra (PY’-oh-MEE’-trah), from the Greek language where “pyo-” means pus and “-metra” refers to the uterus.
Pyometra is a serious infection in which bacteria and their toxins leak into the abdomen and bloodstream, then circulate throughout the body. Without treatment, the dog dies.
Clinical signs, which usually appear one to four months after the female’s heat cycle, include lethargy, loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, and increased drinking and urination. Sometimes, the dog has a vaginal discharge that contains pus.
Pyometra most often strikes middle-aged and older dogs, though it has occurred in females from 4 months to 18 years of age. Prevalence ranges from 15% to 25% of unsterilized female dogs.
The disease can be prevented through surgical removal of the uterus and ovaries, a procedure called a spay or ovariohysterectomy.
Dogs spayed prior to their first heat gain an added benefit: Their risk of mammary cancer drops to nearly zero.
Therefore, to protect their health, female dogs not intended for breeding deserve to be spayed.
Lee Pickett, VMD, practices companion animal medicine in North Carolina. Contact her at https://askthevet.pet.
