Embrace Pet Insurance Blog

Blood transfusions for cats and dogs

You learn something new every day. While I knew that dogs and cats can get blood transfusions, it turns out that it's quite difficult to determine the animal's blood type. What this means is that while a dog or cat can get a transfusion the first time it is needed, he or she cannot get another transfusion after that because the animal's body will reject it because of the first transfusion. And I thought veterinary knowledge had worked all these sorts of things!

Well, it seems that there is progress being made on a more reliable method to determine a dog or cat's blood type in Australia. A PhD student at the University of Melbourne has come up with the first step to tackling the problem. She was able to determine cat and dog blood types using artificial antibodies, which is a huge step. This also means no more using mice and rabbits to determine blood type. Her boss and coworker volunteered blood from their own dogs, Annie and Puddles. There is still a lot of work to be done to commercialize the method but it's a great first step to a big problem. Here is the press release from the university.

Have any of you ever had a transfusion for your cat or dog? Did you know about the issues around finding out blood types for cats and dogs?

Sorry about the light blogging

After getting back from my holidays in Canada, I thought I'd get right back into the blogging swing of things but have had a few distractions behind the scenes: one to do with Embrace (I can't tell you what it is but I think you'll like it); and the other an 8-day house closing.

We bought a house last Saturday (after looking at houses the previous Sunday only!) and now we're closing the deal next Wednesday. Talk about efficiency!!! However, it does mean a few million details that need to be sorted out this week.

I know, I know, pathetic excuses indeed (after all, what is it going to be like when we're up and running - I can't wait to find out). That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Besides, perhaps you can tell me what you would like to hear about? Perhaps even share with us all some of the great pet stories I hear every time I talk to pet lovers about what I'm trying to do. You don't just want to hear me drone on all the time, do you?

First kittens for cloned wildcats

My mom was telling me that she and my dad saw a real wild cat in Scotland just after they were married. She says:

It was incredible.  It was in Arracha and we were walking to a place for dinner, and it was crossing the road.  Quite a sight!!

So, she noticed this interesting article on the BBC website about kittens born to cloned wild cats, which she pointed out to me.

While it might sound like a good idea to see if cloned endangered animals can breed to save the species, the article makes a good point that you need to fix the things that made the species endangered in the first place such as human encroachment on animal territories, disease affecting the animals or their prey, pollution, and so on. I think it's an interesting start to tackling conservation issues, which is bound to stir up a lot of discussion.

What do you think?

Do you RSS me?

Sorry for the technical sidetrack but I just changed my RSS feed to a feedburner feed. Why? So I can see how many of you are syndicating my blog and what you are looking at and maybe serve you better with this information.

So, if the answer is yes to the question in the title, please change the RSS feed link to http://feeds.feedburner.com/EmbracePetInsuranceBlog. You can also find the link on the left at the bottom using the feedburner flames :)

Cheers!

Hartville Group: Chairman of the Board resigns

Roger Kimmel, the non-executive Chairman of the Board of the Hartville Group, resigned effective July 29, 2005. He was appointed after Russell Smith III, the founder of Hartville and previous CEO and Chairman of the Board, resigned in April.

The Hartville Group have been regrouping after a failed takeover of a Texan insurance company earlier this year and have posted losses in their restated earnings for 2004 and 2005. It will be interesting to see what comes out in their midyear earnings, available Monday Aug 15. It can't bode well that the Chairman of the Board has left the company, whatever the reason.

Veterinary Medicine Library - Home Page

Link: Veterinary Medicine Library - Home Page.

I've discovered this excellent resource site for veterinary care offered by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (thanks Mom!). They have all sorts of goodies you might find useful such as

• veterinary acronyms - did you know that NAF stands for no abnormal findings? These pages could be useful when looking at your pet's medical records,
• bibliographies for animal owners on topics such as pet care, pet loss, veterinary acupuncture, and children to young adults interested in becoming vets, and
• a pet care home page with info on local veterinarians, animal shelters, frequently asked animal questions, etc.
• plants toxic to animals. This is a comprehensive list of outdoor plants that can affect animals with pictures and descriptions. Some plants are missing a description of what would happen to an animal should it eat the plant and there's no indication of the "high priority" plants that are deadly as opposed to making your cat or dog unwell but it's an interesting list all the same. Many plants would also only be eaten by horses or bigger animals but it can't hurt to check it, especially if your dog likes to eat the nuts or fruit that drop off trees.

Things you can buy while flying

I've been travelling by plane quite a bit lately and always love browsing the Sky Mall magazine. I am always impressed with the imaginative pet products they display. Items like raised dog bowls and memory foam beds are now ordinary. Here are some of the more interesting products in there (plus links if I can find them).

• a Dogloo Dog House is an igloo-shaped doghouse with accessories like a padded floor and a swing door
• a Door Mounted Cat Climber that is just as it sounds. Good for small spaces.
• a Flea Zapper Comb that kills fleas instantly (don't know about ticks though)
• a Deluxe Dog Shower Kit that attachs to your shower, allowing you to rinse off your dog in the stall. Not that you won't still get wet of course!
• a Pet Staircase that comes in models with different numbers of steps (3-6) to get to those hard to reach pet parent beds or comfy sofas.

Take a look next time you are on a plane - it's addictive to spot the pet goodies.

PS. Just so you know, Embrace has no affiliation with SkyMall or any of their vendors.

Current Pet Insurance Companies AM Best Ratings

I got a great question today about what our insurance partner's rating is. While we don't have an insurance partner we can tell you about yet (don't worry, we are working hard on that and making progress, I like to think), I thought it would be a good idea to summarize the ratings for the current companies (as of Aug 1 2005 - this is now out of date but I will update later. Laura).

• Hartville Group - no information available. Their website says the policies are underwritten by the London Markets and my policy from them names QBE Insurance as the insurer.
• Pet Protect - A rated. Underwritten by The Insurance Corporation of Hannover, which is owned by Hannover Re.
• PetFirst Healthcare - A rated. Underwritten by State National Insurance Company, a subsidiary of State National. 90% or more of the insurance risk is taken by one or more reinsurers that are not disclosed by the pet insurance company.
• PetPartners - A rated. Underwritten by National Specialty Insurance Company, a subsidiary of State National. 90% or more of the insurance risk is taken by one or more reinsurers that are not disclosed by the pet insurance company.
• Pethealth Inc. A- rated. Underwritten by Lincoln General Insurance Company, York , Pa.
• Veterinary Pet Insurance Underwritten by Veterinary Pet Insurance Company (not rated, California) and National Casualty Company (rated A+ by AM Best, in all other states), a subsidiary of Nationwide Mutual Insurance.

As a reminder, the top ratings indicate "secure" companies:

• A++, A+ are considered superior,
• A and A- are excellent, and
• B++ and B+ are very good

Anything below that (B, B-, C, D, etc.) is considered "vulnerable", which is a polite way of saying that the insurance company's promises to their policyholders are at risk to some degree. The higher the letter in the alphabet, the higher the risk.

The holy grail is to get an A rating and while a B++ and B+ is still listed as being secure, some potential marketing companies we have talked with have told us that they would never partner with an insurance company with less than an A rating.

If you want to check for yourself, go to the AM Best website and do a search on the company names. The info on this or any pet insurance company's own website may not be fully up to date.

I hope that's helpful.