Crookwell Veterinary Hospital staff participated in the RSPCA’s Million Paws Walk held in Goulburn on Sunday 15 May. The huge national event is the RSPCA’s biggest community fundraiser of the year and over 200 enthusiastic Goulburn, Crookwell and other local district dog owners turned up with their pets to show their support for the RSPCA. CVH vets Jayde Watling and Will Lucas were part of the vet team giving health checks to all participating dogs.

‘This is such an important event for the RSPCA – Crookwell Veterinary Hospital vets and staff were proud to be involved and help raise funds. It’s a fantastic, fun day for the whole community and we’ll definitely be back next year’, said Jayde. Other CVH staff Brittany Halls and Claire Brien manned a stall with giveaways, pet worming and nail clips, with all proceeds going to the RSPCA.

June and July are CVH Geriatric Pet Months

Every year during winter CVH celebrates senior pets – those wonderful, treasured ageing pets that give their owners so much love and pleasure. Taking extra care of senior pets is important – regular health checks help ensure diseases common to advancing age are detected and treated, giving pets a better quality of life into old age.

Take advantage of this great opportunity and bring your senior pet into Crookwell Veterinary Hospital during June and July, our Geriatric Pet Months. This is what we’re offering: complimentary consultation and health check half price geriatric blood screening test, and entry into the draw to win veterinary services to the value of $100.

Ring us on (02) 4832 1977 to make an appointment from the start of June. You can find out more about senior pet health on our website (www.crookwellvet.com.au) under Animal Care/dogs or cats.

Another local diagnosis of Pestivirus

CVH vets can’t stress enough the importance of testing to determine the pestivirus status of beef cattle herds. Yet another positive diagnosis was made during May, following the wasting deaths of young beef calves in a local herd.

Pestivirus leads to an incredibly complex set of symptoms, immune status and management solutions – and it’s also incredibly common! It’s estimated around 70% of cattle herds across the country are actively infected with the virus, and the Crookwell district is no different.

Pestivirus causes a range of serious disease syndromes in cows and calves, including reproductive failure, abnormal calves, illthrift, diarrhoea and respiratory disease. Major losses occur when a previously uninfected herd becomes infected during the mating period and in early pregnancy.

Pestivirus is one of the most invasive of cattle viruses and has been found in virtually every body tissue – that means infection is spread quickly through close contact between animals.

CVH regularly undertakes testing to determine the status of individual herds. It’s important to have an accurate picture of the level of immunity in each herd and/or to detect the presence of carrier animals. This knowledge helps us develop a strategy for control of the disease within specific herds – with pestivirus, there’s no one solution to fit all herds and disease situations. A vaccine is available but it is relatively expensive and it may be possible to manage existing pestivirus infection with a combination of testing and/or vaccination.

It’s a good cost effective strategy to carry out testing at the time of pregnancy testing.

Pestivirus is a complex disease, but it can be managed to minimise losses. Contact us on (02) 4832 1977 to speak with one of our vets about this challenging disease and its detection and control.