Hampshire vet is the cat's whiskers

8:00am Tuesday 30th December 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

A VET from Winchester has been saluted in a national competition.

Sarah Warren entered a contest that scrutinised her skill in dealing with skin complaints amongst dogs and cats.

Based at the Mildmay Surgery in Easton Lane, Winnall, she submitted a detailed written case study on how she dealt with a Labrador with allergic skin disease.

She treated the dog with a steroid spray, and the assessors were impressed with her handling of the case. As a result, she was awarded second place in the national contest run by Virbac Animal Health Ltd.

Her prize for finishing as runner up was a Fuji FinePix digital camera and a cheque for £250.

The married mother-of-two from East Tytherley near Romsey is currently studying for a certificate in veterinary dermatology, which will allow her to qualify as a specialist in her field.

She added that she had already diagnosed a range of skin complaints in pets this year by using cutting edge intra-dermal allergy testing.

She said skin complaints make up 30 per cent of cases at the surgery. Of those, 70 per cent are linked to some kind of allergy, which are mostly food-related or bad reactions to insect bites.

She said: “Dogs and cats that suffer with skin allergies may have quite severe symptoms mainly caused by itching and scratching, and their lives are often made miserable by their skin disease.

“We have many ways in which we can help these pets and accurate diagnosis is the key to their successful treatment.”