Discovering yourself isn’t a race. Don’t rush it. Relax, breathe, and enjoy the process.

Recognising silent acute pain in animals - assorted species grimace scales:

Pain is subtle - we cannot depend on vocalisations or extreme abnormal behaviour to determine if an animal is on pain - animals can cover up pain while going about their daily life. Grimace scales have been found to be reliable indicators of pain (full text available)

Unfortunately, I could not find a clear visual grimace scale for dogs, cats or birds :(  

Which is a shame, because perhaps I could have recognised my own dog’s discomfort for the acute pain it was sooner:

(left: dog in pain. See eyes, tension, cheeks, whiskers, ears compared to the multiple species grimace charts above. right: tired but not in pain dog)

Perhaps my new books that arrived today might have some on dogs at least. There’s this visual blog post of a stressed dog at the vet - stress in the absence of a trigger looks very much like pain.

Here is a small comparative cats, with the link going into more detail. Not a scale but better than nothing:

Bonus round - you can get free A3 posters on recognising pain for Rabbits, Mice and Rats from the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research. My rabbit specialist vet has the rabbit one!

Grimace scales are great tools but be aware that even veterinarians can have trouble with them. Vets who were untrained in using the scales gave completely different scores to animals while those with training consistently gave the same pain score.

Other signs of pain in animals that may be easier for owners to recognize:

Limping

Decreased appetite

Sleeping more

Avoiding contact

Urinating/defecating in the house or out of the litter box

Not jumping onto furniture anymore

Changes in demeanor

An easy to use clinical acute pain scale is the CSU scale for cats and dogs.

Shark skin under a microscope - shark skin is not made up of traditional fish scales. Rather, they have minature teeth similar to shark teeth in general that interlock. These scales are called “dermal scales”. Recent hydrodynamic research has show how these scales actually bristle like fur and push the water down the shark more efficiently and with less drag.

Wow!!

causes of coughing cats

Nicole Addison @thepowerwithin

Enzymes - clinical chemistry

ALP: 

ALT: 

AST: 

AST<ALT = hepatic injury

AST>ALT = hepatocyte necrosis - poor prognosis (AST is found in the mitochondria, not spilled out until severe destruction) - CONSIDER MUSCLE SOURCE

AST:ALT Ratio: 

GGT: 

GST (Gluthathione S-transferase):

CK: 

LDH: 

Troponin: 

Lipase: 

Amylase: 

Acid phosphatase: 

Ever Wondered How Emperor Penguins Survive in Temperatures of −40°C ? 

Their feathers are densely packed, and have in fact the highest contour feather density of any bird, allowing them to maintain a constant body temperature of 38°C in freezing waters. 

Depsite previous reports that filoplumes and plumules aka.downy feathers, are absent in penguins, new research has found the presence of both feathers in the penguin’s plumage. It was assumed before this that afterfeathers were the sole insulation component in the penguin’s plumage. 

These downy feathers are about four times denser than the afterfeathers of the bird and play a key role in the insulation of penguins.

Do not put your bunny on it’s back.

It may seem ‘‘relaxed’‘ or ‘‘sleeping’‘, but this is incredibly unhealthy.

They are  in a state of tonic immobility and are not relaxed, hypnotized, or insensitive to pain.

Scientists believe that this is a defense mechanism brought on when a rabbit has already been ‘caught’ by a predator. If the rabbit appears dead, the predator may release its grip momentarily and allows the rabbit to escape. Research has shown that rabbits in this state show an increased heart and respiratory rate with elevated plasma corticosterone levels, indicative of fear-induced stress.

The stress caused by this position can be fatal if rabbits are already suffering from respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and the sudden transition to from passive and active escape can be unpredictable and instantaneous which can result in significant injury to the rabbit. Sudden noise or painful stimuli can interrupt the trance and there is considerable variation in individual susceptibility to the technique

Your rabbit will display the following behaviors if it is tranced:

It’s honestly sickening to see people buying bunnies for their cuteness and softness, but not educating themselves on how to actually take care of it. If you keep trancing your bunny on purpose or bathing it, you deserve to have your pets taken away from you.

Reblogging because Easter is coming and there are always people who blindly buy a bunny for their kids on Easter without educating themselves on how to take care of it. This is just another example on what NOT to do.

Same thing with chickens. It’s not cute. they aren’t relaxed. Stop doing this to rabbits and chickens. 

Chief complaint: Dog ate sugarless gum. (For those of you that don’t know, sugarless gum contains xylitol which is toxic to canines.) So we induced vomiting and what came up? The gym, 3 socks, 2 headbands, a thong, and about 5 baby wipes. HOW DO THEY DO THAT

@thepowerwithin (via thepowerwithin)

Based on the UK vaccination recommendations.