The relationship between the pet and it's owner is a very important and interesting issue. Unfortunately there is not so much research on this and in addition to that Swedish veterinarian education does not put much emphasis on pet's role in society or their pattern of behaviour nor treatment. This thesis is based on an opinion poll that 20 dog owners and 20 cat owners contributed. The main purpose of the thesis was to compare the relationships that the pet (dog or cat) and its owner can have. The issues such as the pet owner's attitude to his/her pet, how the pet owner percieves and interprets the signals from the animal, and what they think about the natural behaviours and needs that their pets (might) have. The results show that dog- and cat owners are people who generally love animals, that they used to have even other animal species in the past, but when it comes to choice between a new dog or a new cat they choose the one that they previously have had and that they are used to. Most of a dog owners choose the dog to be their pet because of the company while the majority of a cat owners choose cat because cats are independent and they are used to cats.

Pheromones are chemical substances representing very specific signal messages within a species. Although a lot remains unknown about their precise effects, it is known that pheromones influence the behaviour of the receiver. Since the mid 1990s, when it was first possible to synthesise analogues of two fractions of feline facial pheromone, F3 (Feliway®) and F4 (Felifriend®), these have been used in so called pheromonotherapy to treat behavioural problems in cats. The initial use of pheromones for specific behavioural problems has been extended to cover the wide field of stress related issues. This studycontains a questionnaire where veterinary nurses and surgeons at 50 Swedish veterinary hospitals and clinics were asked about their use of synthetic analogues to feline facial pheromones in the care and treatment of cats.

Med denna uppsats ämnar jag att designa fiktiva stammars utseende genom att basera deras utseende på existerande stammars visuella attribut och kulturer, genom en analys. Verket består av en serie bilder som innehåller karaktärsdesigner till det fiktiva spelet ?Feral?. Texten inleds med idén bakom verket och tankar om hur olika människor relaterar till kläder. Efter det så tas syftet och de mål som har definierats upp.

Background: Vaccination is an important part in cats? welfare. It both helps to prevent the individual cat from catching a disease or lessen the symptoms of it, and protects the entire cat population from an epidemic. It is the cat owner who makes the decision to vaccinate or not. Understanding the cat owners? perspective regarding vaccination may improve communication between the owner and the veterinary nurse, which may lead to a higher vaccination rate among cats.

The analysis of acute phase protein serum amyloid A (SAA) has recently been brought into clinical use in veterinary medicine. Some of the difficulties with incorporating the SAA method in clinical practice have been the expensive and rather large equipment required for the method. Due to these difficulties only larger clinics can afford to use the SAA analysis.The company Equinostic has recently developed a smaller instrument that costs one-tenth of a larger instrument. The instrument is named EVA1 and has so far only been used to analyze SAA in horses.The aim of this study was to investigate if the EVA1 instrument could be used to analyze SAA in cats. This study included 24 serum samples from cat, which were first analyzed twice on the EVA1 instrument and then sent to the Strömsholm Referral Animal Hospital in Sweden where they reanalyzed the samples using a validated reference method.

This report was written in an attempt to summarize old and new theories and scientific results regarding FORL (Feline Odontoclastic Resorptive Lesions). Several different kinds of treatment are presented in this study. Among them teeth extraction and crown amputation seems to give the best long-term results. It seems clear that the domestic cat of today have no trouble digesting dry foods without their teeth. The most accurate way to diagnose FORL is by using intraoral dental radiology technique.

Hydropericardium or pericardial effusion (PE) is the accumulation of fluid in the pericardial sac and is often secondary to pericardial diseases or diseases related to the heart. It is unusual with clinically relevant pericardial diseases in cats but pericardial effusion is the most common one. Since PE causes serious symptoms and may lead to death it is important with a quick diagnosis and treatment. PE can be acute and cause cardiac tamponade, which gives severe clinical signs. Cardiac tamponade needs to be treated immediately or else the cat will die from cardiogenic chock. More common is chronic PE where the fluid accumulates during a longer period of time and the pericardial sac stretches.

Hydropericardium or pericardial effusion (PE) is the accumulation of fluid in the pericardial sac and is often secondary to pericardial diseases or diseases related to the heart. It is unusual with clinically relevant pericardial diseases in cats but pericardial effusion is the most common one. Since PE causes serious symptoms and may lead to death it is important with a quick diagnosis and treatment. PE can be acute and cause cardiac tamponade, which gives severe clinical signs. Cardiac tamponade needs to be treated immediately or else the cat will die from cardiogenic chock. More common is chronic PE where the fluid accumulates during a longer period of time and the pericardial sac stretches.

Feline Odontoclastic Resorptive Lesions (FORL) is a painful disease that affects feline teeth and that is increasing in prevalence. The ethiology is still rather unknown. However, research on the ultra structure of the feline tooth may help us understand why FORL is so prevalent in cats and not in other species. Since the ethiology is still unknown, there is yet no profylaxis. The pathogenesis is rather well known; the hard structure of affected teeth gradually undergo odontoclastic resorption and resorptive lesions are often partly replaced with bone- or cementum-like tissue.

Platelet aggregation is a major and common problem in blood samples from cats. This greatly affects the accuracy of counting of the platelets. Because of the difficulties in counting feline platelets, results for patients and reliable reference values for cat platelets are currently so inaccurate as to be almost useless in diagnosis of thrombocytopenia. In this study we used an effective method to prevent platelet aggregation. Blood was collected in CTAD test tubes and prostaglandin E1 was added to the blood sample.

Photodynamic therapy is a relatively new treatment for superficial squamous cell carcinoma in cats. There are no publications indicating that the method is being used in veterinary practice in Sweden at the present time. The method uses the interaction between a photosensitive agent which has been administered to the tumor area, light of a wavelength that can be absorbed by the photosensitiser and the presence of oxygen. In this study photodynamic treatments were performed at the Queen?s Veterinary School Hopital of Cambridge University between 1998 and 2002.

This student report is about neutering male and female cats and compares early ageneutering to neutering at the traditional age of 6 months.The main focus in this report is early age neutering, which means that neutering isperformed when the kittens are between 6 and 16 weeks of age. This technique has beenused by shelters in the United States for a long time, to prevent the adopted cats fromreproduce and contribute to the problem of overpopulation.Two different surgical methods are also addressed; the ventral midline incision and thelateral flank approach. Ovariohysterectomy and ovariectomy are also compared.I also address which drugs are preferable when kittens are neutered and some importantguidelines where you have to be extra careful when dealing with kittens.These guidelines are the preanesthetic evaluation, calculating drug dosages and preventinghypothermia, hypoglycaemia and stress.The report also has a summary of the concerns regarding early age neutering such asanaesthetic risks, growth disorders and growth plate fractures, urologic diseases andimmune system dysfunction, obesity, altered metabolism and behavioural changes.The sex hormones and how they change after neutering is also included.At the end of the report there is a compilation of a questionnaire that consists of eightquestions that I sent out to various animal hospitals and veterinary clinics in Sweden..

Pet rabbits are increasing in popularity and the owners want the same treatment for them as they would want for a dog or a cat. However, the knowledge among clinical staff about these small animals is not always up to date. The aim of this paper is to highlight the needs of the pet rabbit and how these can be met regarding veterinary nursing. Pet rabbits are different from dogs and cats in several ways and their needs as patients differ as well. Rabbits are herbivorous prey animals. To avoid predators, they are very reluctant to show any sign of weakness for as long as they can.

Animal-assisted therapy had its large breakthrough in the 1960-ties when a psychiatrist named Boris Levinson discovered the great advantages of involving animals in the treatment of patients. Therapy with animals involves that animals are used in a systematic way, in a person's process of treatment. The most distinguished companion animal used within this area is the dog, but horses, cats, rabbits, birds, dolphins and the most common farm animals are used in animal-assisted therapy. Most animals that are to be used for this specific purpose need to be trained in order to maintain their physical and mental health, but also to minimize the risks for the people that are involved. Most studies within this research area are focused on the positive effects on the patients and less on the effects on the animals.

The aim of this paper was to study incoming complaints to The County Administrative Board in Västra Götaland during 2011 and examine if it was possible to see a connection between warranted and unwarranted complaints and informer, animal species and type of inadequate. In Västra Götaland, a complaint is classified as warranted if the inspection leads to a reprimand, whether it regards what was reported or not. Data were collected during three weeks through The County Administrative Board´s record system Platina and a total of 456 complaints were studied. The parameter ?complainant? was categorized into four groups according to The County Administrative Boards own division; public with the subgroups anonymous and non-anonymous, animal health staff and others.