Most of you who read this blog already know who the best vet in Portland is... but it's nice to get a little validation. And so now it's official - Kristin was voted "Best Veterinarian" in Spot magazine's annual Top Dog issue! It's very rewarding and satisfying to see all of her hard work and efforts being recognized. 

Since modesty forbids her to brag too much, I figure it's my job to let everyone know :)

I've met a lot of veterinarians over the years, and while of course many are excellent, none of them can quite match Kristin's unique combination of strengths. Of course she stays up to date on what's current in medicine, and she works tirelessly to solve problems. Obviously she loves animals, and has a lot of compassion. Like many of her peers and friends she's focused on keeping things moving, always improving herself, and never letting the ball drop.

But any veterinarian can stay late, diagnose an illness, bandage a wound, or prescribe a medication.

The thing that sets Kristin apart is that she genuinely cares about both her patients and her clients, and sees that relationship as an indivisible unit. Clients need to understand the process, their options, and the overall plan - and they need to be listened to, engaged, and understood. If they're not educated and involved then half the work a veterinarian does can be lost when the patient leaves the building. Kristin effectively turns her clients into "Deputy Veterinarians", "Field Nurses", and "Patient Advocates", so they can bring their personally motivated effort and love for their pets into the process.

Without that philosophy, she might only be the second best vet in town. But she's not - she's the best. Did I already mention that?

There's an awards celebration downtown at Hotel Monaco this Thursday at 6. Everyone's invited, and we'd love to see you there - dogs are welcome too!

Congratulations Kristin!

a few outtakes from our Best Veterinarian! photo shoot

     

We hope you had a bountiful thanksgiving. We had two! And some of our staff had 3 or 4! (Lots of family to spread the joy.)

A turkey at farm sanctuary

 

Our first big meal was a vegetarian Pot Luck for our staff where we took our meeting time and had a wonderful meal (I am thankful for all of the good cooks we have) and shared pictures of our pets. Nettle gave us a beautiful pictoral tour of Farm Sanctuary where she worked for awhile in Northern California. You can read about thier new turkeys here. The hardest part as you can imagine was getting back to work on a super full stomachs and really just wanting a nap!

On Thanksgiving Day each of the staff celebrated in their own ways. Michael and I went on a hike to Oneonta Gorge with some good friends and then prepared a great feast with friends and family. It was delicious. DeeDee and Mojo and Cousin Reggie (Aunt Jean's dog) had Duck and Potato filled frozen Kongs that lasted through the entire meal. What a treat!

Share with us how you celebrated this bountiful holiday. Were your pets involved?

Dr. Krissy Bussmann joined Mt. Tabor Vet Care in April 2009 and loves her job! For more information, check out her bio on our website.

I can’t count how many times in my veterinary career, especially in emergency medicine, I’ve had the responsibility of taking care of my injured or ill patients and also have to reassure my clients and guide them through their options in a stressful situation. But I never thought about how I might react when the injury was in my own dog and I was called on to be not only his mom but also his veterinarian.
 
Two weeks ago my dog Tommy broke his tail. He’s a whippet with a long skinny tail, and it got in the way of the car door. I was on the opposite side of the car when the door slammed, and I couldn’t see what was happening. He started screaming and my first thought was that he was being murdered. Thankfully only his tail had gotten caught in the door and he is healing with it all wrapped up with a tongue depressor as a splint. He still breaks my heart when he looks sad or whimpers despite his pain medication.

This is an X-ray of Tommy's broken tail. We found an old, healed fracture just past the new fracture!

Fortunately, neither of my dogs have ever been seriously ill. But Tommy is a senior dog at 13 and he has early kidney insufficiency. What makes it so hard to make major decisions for our pets is that they can’t speak for themselves. My two dogs, like your own pets, completely trust that we will provide for them and protect them, and I feel a huge responsibility (as you must) to be their guardian and safe-keeper.

Here is Tommy modeling his tail splint. There is a tongue depressor wrapped up in there for stabilization!

Honestly, if I had to make a huge medical decision for them, I don’t think I would be able to do it on my own. My knowledge as a doctor would fly out the window and I would panic. There is no way that I can both be my dogs’ mom and their doctor at the same time, and that is clearly demonstrated by the blind, sheer panic I felt when the tip of Tommy’s tail broke. I would need and want a trusted medical professional team to help me work through my options, hold my hand and support me through the difficult situation.  

Both Kristin and I have experienced medical issues with our own pets and we are grateful to have a community of supportive veterinary friends to let us be the moms while taking excellent care of our pets. We both feel that this is what makes the veterinary care we offer so special – we know what it’s like to be worried about our companions and we understand the overwhelming responsibility of making the best decisions for our pets.

Belmont Street Fair Booth

Wow! What a great turnout we had for our second annual Teddy Bear Surgery at the Belmont Street Fair. We had crowds of kids waiting to save the lives of our bears.

Nettle assists the surgeon

We set up our mobile surgery unit at our booth. The surgeons would come and pick out a patient - a pesky sick bear that had swallowed some candy whole WITHOUT removing the wrapper, get outfitted for surgery with a cap and mask, anesthetize the patient and then preform delicate surgery to remove the offending foreign body. Then they would expertly close the patient up with a shoe tie bow and recover the patient to take them home. 

Removing the obstruction

It was so much fun. We had some repeat surgeons from last year showing off their skills. Some kids really hammed it up, rescuing their teddy bears from complications all while talking on their cell phones! Some of the smaller kids needed some assistant from their surgical team but everyone had a great time. 

Dr. Krissy Bussmann assists a surgeon

This year we even had Teddy Bear Surgeon tattoos for the kids which was an excellent addition.

 

Dr. Kristin Sulis and Dr. Krissy Bussmann sporting their Teddy Bear Surgeon tattoos

We ran out of bears just after 2:30pm and with two and a half hours to go we held back a couple to refill.  We are rethinking some improvements for next year so be sure to come by and check us out! 

Our booth at the Belmont Street Fair

I want to thank all of our staff for coming out and making this event so successful. Special thanks to Barb Sulis for working all year to create the bears! (See her handiwork from last year's blog).  She looked pretty overwhelmed thinking of how many we will need for next year! 

                 

 

Hello All!

We are very excited for the Belmont Street Fair tomorrow. We will have a booth in the main area where we will be conducting Teddy Bear Surgery again with twice as many sick bears! This year we have temporary tatoos so come visit us from 10am - 5pm! Our booth will be near Laughing Planet and after you visit the booth you can ride the free Trolley (with live music) up to the clinic for a tour.

The clinic will be officially closed for appointments tomorrow but we will be around if you need us.

 

An the Centennial Celebration we had a contest...guess what breed Benny is! It was a lot of fun. Benny's mom, Laura Mazy (a wonderful local photographer and art director) made the cutest poster with some breed choices.

Anyone that guessed one of Benny's breeds correctly made it into the drawing to win a Wisdom Panel MX Mixed-Breed Analysis. There were many excellent guesses and we have our winner who was notified last week - we can't wait to see who he brings in!

So...do you want to guess?

Benny's panel came back with only 2 intermediate level breeds - Labrador and Schipperke! The rest is undetectable but he's all Benny to us!

 

**Special Event!!** Join me Thursday night 8/20 for a glass of wine and a talk about Pets and Money at Oscar Albert from 6pm-8pm. Attorney Amy Davidson will be discussing Pet Trusts, Financial Planner Mackenzie Martin will teach you how to Budget for Pet Care and I will be discussing Wellness Care and Pet Insurance.  Pets are welcome!

We were closed on Saturday to attend the weekend celebration of Mt. Tabor Park's 100 year anniversary. It was a fun weekend filled with activities and booths and even a pet parade. 

Our booth up at the park

We had so much fun talking to people, meeting their dogs and handing out STAM treats. 

Dr. Krissy Bussman and her dogs

The parade was on Sunday afternoon and although there was a bit of confusion on where to start, once we got marching the crowd had a great time. We saw many clients and patients there and even handed out bandanas with our logo on it to pets we didn't know. 

Lady enjoying herself in the parade

Thank you to everyone that helped make the day a great success! 

Some of our group: Nettle, Kristin, Deb, Melissa, Katie and Krissy

 

You can see more pictures of the event here.

 

   

Mt. Tabor Park is celebrating it's 100th Anniversary this weekend and we are joining in. We will be closed for our normal hours on Saturday in order to participate in the park's festivities. On Saturday and Sunday we will have a booth up at the park and on Sunday we are participating in the Pet Parade! (See map below!) We want to invite all of our clients and their pets to join us for the parade at 3pm on Sunday. Pick up your t shirt and bandana early at our booth near the summit and then meet down at Resivoir #5 at 3pm for the parade. We'll be marching with a marching band! We hope you can come and celebrate this city jewel, enjoy the concerts, car displays and participate in many of the special events (including the parade!!). We'll see you up at the park! For more information check the Mt. Tabor Centennial Celebration website. 

Click on the map to enlarge

We have kittens! And I must say it is really great to have them around. If I have a difficult day I put myself in the midst of five playful and adorable kittens and suddenly life is good. I love my job! 

Flounder and Calamari

I was visiting Pixie Project last week and found out that they need help finding homes for kittens. The shelters are full and desperately calling Pixie Project to take litters of kittens to find homes for. I, of course, selflessly offered to help by taking a litter into the clinic. I couldn't wait to get the fuzz balls to the clinic and I knew you would love getting your kitten fix even if you weren't looking to bring one into your home. The staff has been smitten with the kittens too taking pictures, giving them nicknames and exercising them over lunch. Favorites are starting to emerge.  

Salmon and Shrimpy

So come and check them out. Even if you only need a little kitten love for the day and definately if you are looking to expand your fuzzy family.  They are fun, playful, loving and looking for homes. Judging by their extreme interest in toys I am guessing they'll be good mousers or bug hunters if you are in need.  

Puffer and Calamari

If you don't know about Pixie Project and thier excellent store please check them out! They sell great quality food, fun toys and accessories. All proceeds go to benefit their shelter so you can spoil your pet and help another in the process. They are located on MLK at the south end of the Convention Center. 

Kittens want to go home with you!

The litter we have is the Seafood litter - Calamari - the only boy (orange) and his sisters - Puffer (yellow), Flounder (white), Salmon (green) and Shrimpy (pink). 

       

Many of you know that chocolate is toxic in dogs and some of you even know about the dangers of grapes and raisins, but salmon? Many of us share our cooked Salmon with our pets and even buy dog food with the main ingredient being salmon. We offer salmon oil for skin diseases and arthritis and offer salmon skin treats. So what is this about Salmon Poisoning?

Mojo slyly chewing on a salmon

Actually Salmon Poisoning is an infection (and not a toxin at all) that dogs get from eating raw Salmon or Trout. There have been a rash of cases in Oregon recently. I received an email from the Public Health Veterinarian talking about the increase in cases reported by Oregon Veterinarians. At Mt. Tabor Veterinary Care we have seen 3 cases of Salmon Poisoning and the latest was our own Indy (the sweet puppy that was looking for a home that Melissa kept). Indy was out at a lake a week ago where Melissa, her boyfriend Jake and friends were camping and fishing. She didn’t see Indy get into any fish but they had cleaned the fish near the campsite at the water. Another one of our patients, Juniper had been out fishing with her family and friends on the Deschutes a week before she was diagnosed and was given a small fish to play with. They didn’t think she ate it. And our 3rd patient took off from her family one evening at the beach and came back the next morning smelling foul – a week later she was depressed, not eating, lethargic and had a fever – the same symptoms Indy and Juniper had.

Poor Indy getting iv fluids for salmon poisoning

Salmon Poisoning has a very interesting life cycle. The dog eats raw salmon or trout which contains the parasite Nanophyetus salmonicola, a liver fluke. Encysted inside of this fluke is the rikettsia (or bacteria), Neorickettsia helminthoeca, that causes the actual symptoms of the disease. The fish get the fluke from living in the same water as the intermediate host, the snail.  Once the fluke is in the intestines of the dog, it releases the rickettsia which spreads in the bloodstream. Symptoms occur about a week after ingestion of the raw fish and include fever, lethargy, depression, not eating, vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss, nasal and ocular discharge. This disease can be fatal. I have seen prolonged cases need to be hospitalized in intensive care and receive multiple plasma transfusions. In all of our cases, the clients noticed the profound changes in their pet’s behavior and brought them in right away.

The disease is diagnosed through a fecal sample looking for the fluke eggs. Treatment is with antibiotics and supportive care, keeping the patient well hydrated and monitoring the protein levels which can be lost through the inflamed intestine. We also deworm for the liver flukes. Indy, our latest case, felt better within 24 hours of treatment.

Juniper at the Deschutes River

The great news about this condition is that once a patient is cured of Salmon Poisoning, they are likely immune to the condition. There have been cases of fisherman actually giving their dogs raw salmon or trout to eat so they can get the disease! It's almost like a vaccine. In the same way parents send their children over to play with kids with chicken pox, these fisherman control the exposure of their dogs to Salmon Poisoning.

Please keep this condition in mind as you spend time outside with your dog at the bountiful lakes and rivers (and even the coast) the Northwest has to offer. If you and your dogs spend any time near water and come down with these profound symptoms of illness, please seek veterinary attention right away and be sure to bring a fecal sample in with you!