Pretty busy schedule last week in Quebec:
Mon March 25th: evening seminar in Rimouski on Canine Reproduction and Nutrition.
When I was working at the vet faculty in Paris, we were hardly speaking about it with our breeders’ clients. Why? Well, because we assumed “breeders know about it”. Now working for Royal Canin, this is obviously something I discuss on a daily basis and I realised there are still plenty of misconceptions out there on this topic. The discussion was as usual filled with passion. And reproduction can definitely keep you up at night since we left around 10pm (after kicking it off at 6:30pm)!!!
Tue March 26th: evening seminar in Quebec City concerning feeding management of neutered cats
Also an interesting topic! Spay/neuter are among the most common veterinary procedures performed. There are definitely pros (population control measures, control of sex hormones related diseases. Etc…) and this should be proposed to any pet that is not supposed to be bred. But there are also cons, the main one being weight gain. At the vet school this was something we were really emphasizing with our vet students. When I started 10 years ago, we had to decrease the daily energy intake by 20-30%. Not always easy especially when dealing with small breeds… Now we have dedicated nutritional solutions that make our life much easier, believe me!
Wed March 27th: morning seminar in Quebec City concerning infectious diseases in the feline species
People sometimes wonder why feline breeders are so stressed out when somebody manipulates their cat. This is not abnormal when you know how much predisposed cats living in communities are predisposed to them… We discussed about parasites, ringworm, FIP, upper respiratory diseases… Concerning these diseases, what is the most important thing feline breeders should focus on? If you ask me for an opinion I would only say one thing: instead of only focussing on medical solutions (= “the perfect drug”), FOCUS ON HYGIENE! This is, for sure, the best way to prevent outbreaks in a cattery.
Wed March 27th: evening seminar in Victoriaville on Hygiene in catteries
As I just said, hygiene is key in catteries and there are few things that can be done to have a better control on the risks related to infectious diseases. This talk was all about sectorization, “human flows”, cleaning and disinfecting… Indeed, there are little things that are very easy to implement. I am sometimes said that this talk is “only” for large catteries. However, the concepts we presented can be used in ANY kind of feline units.
DR. EMMANUEL FONTAINE 