Dr. Shelagh Morrison

Upon graduation, Shelagh went on to complete a 1 year internship in small animal medicine and surgery at the Alta Vista Animal Hospital, working with the specialists in ophthalmology, surgery and internal medicine.  She then joined the staff there for the next 7 years, working primarily in the Critical Care Unit and the emergency department. During that time she was also the official veterinarian for the Parliament Hill cat colony.  After two maternity leaves and three children she decided to continue practicing quality medicine, but in an atmosphere with regular hours and a more relaxed pace. She joined the staff at the Queensway West Animal Hospital part time in 2005 and then on a full time basis in the Spring of 2006. She enjoys getting to know clients and their pets and following puppies and kittens as they grow up, something she did not get to do often while practicing emergency medicine.

Shelagh shares her home in the country with her husband Garth, her daughter Madelyn and her twin son and daughter Jaron and Paige.  Her household is run by 4 black cats- Phoebe, the oversized diabetic, is the “boss” and was Shelagh’s college roommate, Maggie is a tiny Oriental Longhair with a large personality, Dexter is a sweet boy who was rescued from the Humane Society after a severe head trauma, and Panda is “the baby”, rescued in 2008 also after a severe injury.  The 2 dogs are kept in line by the cats- but get to come to work with Shelagh to “let loose”.  Vegas is the feisty little Brussles Griffon Terrier and her crazy puppy side-kick is Potter the schnoodle (schnauzer/poodle mix) who can often be seen trying to socialize at the front desk or sneaking into exam rooms to “visit”. Rhino the hamster rounds out the pack of furry four legged critters in the household.

Shelagh spends most of her spare time with her young children and family.  She  teaches Sunday school at their local church and volunteers at the elementary school. When she’s not running the kids between swimming, underwater hockey, soccer, baseball and riding lessons, she enjoys yoga and jogging and just “relaxing” whenever she gets the chance.

Understanding Pet Food Labels

Few topics elicit as much debate as pet nutrition. It is our hope that, through this series of e-mail newsletters, that we can help educate you about the issues surrounding what your pet should eat.

These newsletters will address such topics as reading pet food labels, what the ingredients list actually means and whether or not home made pet foods are a good option for your pet.

We trust that the information in this series of articles, though simplified, will help clarify queries you may have about pet foods and assist you in making sound, informed decisions regarding what you feed your pet.  Perhaps they may even cause you to take a second look at the label on your pet’s can or bag of food. As always, we welcome any questions you have on this or any other topic.

Sincererly,
The Staff of the Queensway West Animal Hospital

The Pet Food Label

It is important when selecting a pet food that you have a basic understanding of what the wording on a pet food label means.  Although manufacturers must abide by the law regarding what terms they use, they can be quite creative with them.

The three things on the label we will discuss are:

1) The Ingredient Listing – a list of ingredients that are in the food. We will discuss the actual definitions of these in a later newsletter.

The ingredients list shows what ingredients are actually in the food. They are listed in descending order based on their weight.  This is an important concept because the list can be manipulated by using ‘heavier’ ingredients so they will show up earlier in the list. For example:  Whole chicken versus chicken meal: They are both essentially the same thing, the only difference being water content.

• Whole chicken is 70% water and chicken meal is 10% water. If we wanted equivalent amounts of protein we would need to use more whole chicken, putting it higher on the list.
• Ingredients may be split into different forms – corn meal, ground corn and whole corn may be listed separately and therefore appear later in the list although they are all the same ingredient if taken together. This should not be taken as a criticism of corn though – more on that in the next newsletter.

The important message here is that one needs to be careful of the statement that one should look for chicken or beef or some other protein as the first ingredient – it isn’t as simple as that!

2) The Guaranteed Analysis

The guaranteed analysis provides consumers with information on the nutrients in a pet food. It will list the maximum or the minimum amount of a nutrient in the food. These are maximums and minimums so the actual content may be different. It does not indicate how available or digestable the nutrient is to your pet.

As an example, old boots could be used as a source of protein and motor oil as a source of fat. Both would give appropriate levels of protein and fat on the guaranteed analysis but neither could be used by your pet as a nutrient.

3) The Nutritional Adequacy Statement

The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) is a government body that has developed nutrient profiles for pets of varying ages and stages of life. The nutritional adequacy statement is applied to a diet that has met these standards.

Foods may be adequate for the maintenance needs of adult pets or for growth and lactation. They can also be adequate for ‘all life stages.’ Since puppies/kittens and pregnant or lactating animals have the most energy and nutrient needs, ‘all life stage’ diets are essentially puppy or kitten foods. The all life stage diets likely contain nutrients in excess of what an adult pet would need.

There are no nutrient profiles for senior pets or for other specific purposes such as large breed dogs or breed specific diets…..as such, all these diets receive AAFCO certification for maintenance requirements only.

Dawna worked as a Credit Union Administration Manager for 15 years prior to her position here; she then left this job to raise her 3 daughters while operating a successful Hobby Farm Childcare business from home, introducing many children to life on a hobby farm sharing her love of animals.  When her children were older, this love of animals lead her to a complete career change, taking her back to school full time to make her dream of working with animals a reality as a Registered Veterinary Technician graduating from Algonquin College in June of 2010.

After working in a pharmacy for 10 years, Amanda received her Medical Laboratory Assistant / Technician diploma in the spring of 2010. She also received her Ontario Society of Medical Technologists certification the same year. Amanda has always wanted to work in the veterinary field and that dream was fulfilled when she started with Queensway West Animal Hospital in May 2010. Amanda shares her home in Mountain Ontario with her husband Theo, 3 dogs (Lincoln, Buddy, Harley) and her 1 cat (Crazy) Her interests outside the hospital consist of camping, crafts, ATVing and spending time with family and friends.

She strongly believes that it is important for her knowledge as a RVT to continue to expand and grow, and has pursued continuing education in fields such as, veterinary dentistry, cytology, and OHSA in the veterinary practice. She enjoys helping others learn, and regularly accepts students to come into the clinic, be it as a high school co-op, volunteer, or as part of the Technician or Assistant program.

When not at QWAH Megan shares her home and her time with her husband Nathan, and their 3 dogs (Osker, Wiki and Molly) and 2 cats (Toot and Titan).

We are located less than a minute from the Queensway in Kanata, and have been in operation since 1999. We cater to domestic and small animals. Our vision is to provide a personalized level of health care for pets. We believe that pets are an important part of our families. We also believe that keeping them healthy involves a partnership between you as caregiver and us as a health care provider. We believe in preventative personalized health care for your pet. Our practice is based on what can be done on an ongoing basis to keep your pet as healthy as possible for as long as possible. During each half hour appointment we are able to get to know how your pet fits into your life and provide personalized care on parasite control, vaccination, blood screening, nutrition, exercise and other ways to avoid health problems before they start.

We are a hospital capable of providing medical services, surgical services, radiology (x-rays), in house blood and urine analysis and referral access to specialists in a wide variety of areas.  We consult with you every step of the way and encourage you to ask questions and become as informed and involved as possible.

We recognize the rapidly changing nature of health care and strive, through a commitment to continuing education for all of our staff, to keep current with our knowledge and techniques. There is a lot of information regarding the care of pets available from a variety of sources these days; we are always ready and willing to guide you to sort the useful from the irrelevant or harmful.

We hope this website will help you get to know us a bit better. Please visit the virtual tour to see our facilities and services we offer to find out more about our philosophy and what we provide. Better yet, come in for a tour and see the hospital first hand.

Away from the clinic Mary enjoys participating in dog agility, both as an instructor and competitor with her dog, Buddy, who has achieved his titles as an Agility Dog of Canada, Agility Games Dog of Canada, and most recently, Advanced Agility Dog of Canada. Other activities include travelling to spend time with family in England and California, and studying Medical Transcription with the goal of adding a parallel career alongside Veterinary Technology.

Mary shares her home with her husband, Jeff, and in addition to Buddy, she has her cat, Arthur, who some may remember as a former clinic resident until he drove everyone crazy with his antics. Finally there are her 3 beloved “kittens”, orphaned at 5 weeks, and now 2 years old – Charles, Camilla, and Diana.