pain

Is your pet having more difficulty getting up in the morning? Does he or she walk around still legged for the first 10 to 15 minutes in the morning to get warmed up? Is your pet limping especially on those cold, wet, rainy mornings? Does your pet limp around following that Frisbee session? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then your pet is probably suffering from osteoarthritis.

A vitamin C deficiency, also know as scurvy, occurs when an animal lacks the hepatic (liver) enzyme called 1-gulonolactone oxidase necessary for the conversion of L-gulonolactone to L-ascorbic acid or vitamin C, and cannot store the vitamin to any appreciable extent in the body. Essentially three groups of animals lack this enzyme and they include man, monkeys, and the guinea pig.

The term colic, literally translated refers to abdominal pain in the horse. Colic in horses is responsible for more deaths than any other disease process other than old age. It is estimated that 14.6% of all equine deaths per year are secondary to colic. The cost of colic to the Equine industry in the U.S. is estimated to be $144 million annually with approximately 12,000 to 24,000 colic surgeries being conducted in any given year.