Text Box: Winter can be a very difficult time for our wildlife, particularly the tiny birds like blue tits, there are several things you can do to help them survive the cold winter months. Tit species in particular will use nest boxes to shelter from the weather, so make sure these are clean and dry. Text Box: Many of our garden birds will be craving more fat in their diet, we can help provide this by leaving out all that excess fat from our roast dinners, just soak in some stale bread or bird seed and leave on the table, make sure to throw away if not eaten within 4- Text Box: and to bathe in, so de-icing the bird bath is very important Hedgehogs will be going into hibernation now so make sure to be careful when clearing piles of leaves and lighting bonfires- one may be using it as a bed! Now the nights are long and their food will be starting to get scarce, deer will be venturing onto the road more, take care not to dazzle them with your full beam head-lights which may cause them to panic and run into rather than away from the road. Text Box: Wild Winter Text Box: ‘Tis the season to be careful.... Text Box: We all like to include our pets in our Yuletide celebrations and give them some of our Christmas dinner, however some of the things we like aren’t so good for our pets, read on:- Onions are toxic for dogs and cats, this also includes garlic, so be careful with any scraps you feed. Walnuts are considered toxic for dogs, so be careful if you have bowls of nuts Text Box: lying around. Chocolates are of course toxic, particularly the high cocoa content ones, so keep all these tasty treats put of the way of peckish pets. High fat food scraps, such as pork fat and turkey skins can exacerbate a grumbling pancreatitis, be sure to remove as much fat as possible before feeding scrap meat. Many mushrooms and fungi Text Box: are toxic for dogs so best to avoid all of them. Christmas decorations and presents are a great temptation to indiscriminate scroungers(e.g. labradors!!) and playful cats, please try to keep out of reach as ingestion can cause a multitude of problems. Antifreeze is sweet and palatable but extremely toxic and can be fatal if swallowed, so please keep in a safe place.

Staff news

· Nurses clinics are now up and running. We can see your pet for any of those minor problems that don’t necessarily require a vet.

· Tiffany  is going to be a mum! She will be going on her maternity leave early next year.

· Kat is leaving us to work Downunder in the veterinary university in New Zealand.

 

· New look for the nurses-to bring us into the 21st century, we have invested in a new range of uniforms for the nursing team; the qualified nurses now have dark blue tops, the student nurses are in turquoise

.

· Richard is re-joining us for a month or so before he heads back home to New Zealand.

 

Bluetongue update meeting.

2

Wanting to breed your pet?

2

New Practice website.

2

Feline Focus.

3

Pet passport scheme.

4

Puppy parties.

5

Canine Corner.

6
Text Box: Starnes & Gatward Text Box:

Issue 1

Winter 08-09
Text Box: The Vet Gazette Text Box: 5 days. It is quite important to keep the bird feeders clean, as there are diseases out there at the moment that are killing some of

our favourite birds.

Of course they all need water as normal to drink

Next Page