Fluffy is a 2 year old domestic long hair cat who was presented to our clinic for an acute onset of lameness of the right foreleg. Fluffy is a very well behaved kitty and allowed us to feel his leg without much complaint. Our vet could easily palpate bone instability on the forelimb and radiographs confirmed that Fluffy had a minimally displaced mid-radius fracture of the right foreleg with no associated open wound.

Meet Meong, a 10 year old male Abyssinian who is a well known and much loved patient at our clinic. We first met Meong back in January 2001 for his second kitten vaccination. Over the past 10 years, Meong has been a regular visitor here at Pascoe Vale Veterinary Hospital. In September 2009, Meong became unwell and was subsequently diagnosed with diabetes. He spent a short time in hospital to stabilise his diabetes, and began twice daily insulin injections and a special diabetic diet.

Seventeen week old Meggie first visited us in January when she vomited a 5cm piece of wool, bandaid, rubber band and a rose petal all in a lump! When she visited us again, she was lethargic, dehydrated and had a fever. On abdominal palpation we could not feel a distinct foreign body but her gastrointestinal tract felt thickened, and based on her history of eating foreign objects we were very worried. Meggie was given injections of pain relief and antibiotics, and was to be monitored overnight at home.

Ash is a 2 year old domestic short haired cat who we saw in November 2010. Poor Ash had been missing for a week and had only reappeared the night before he was brought into our clinic. Ash had a horrible injury to his right foreleg, believed to have happened when he was caught in a rabbit trap. By the time we examined him, his right forepaw area was infected beyond repair with a heavy maggot infestation. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Orri is a 2 and a half year old domestic cat who has recently been diagnosed with pemphigus foliaceous. "What on earth is that?" I hear you ask. Pemphigus is an uncommon auto-immune skin disorder where the immune system targets skin cells at the border of haired and non-haired areas. This causes the skin to flake and hair to fall out. It does this by producing auto-antibodies which target the 'glue' that holds skin cells together, resulting in them detaching and falling off.

Seventeen year old tortoise shell Fifi came to us in June this year with a complaint of not being able to see. Her owner noticed on several occasions that Fifi had been bumping into objects in the house and seemed to veer off to the side when she walks. This incident happened suddenly with no known inciting cause. Fifi seemed well apart from the impaired vision. Obviously very concerned, her owner brought Fifi to our attention in hope of getting her vision back.

Puss-Puss has been a patient here at Pascoe Vale Veterinary Hospital for a long time. She will be turning 17 years old, and like many senior cats we are seeing her regularly to ensure that she is healthy and living comfortably. During Puss-Puss' senior health check up, we check for issues, which start to appear at an older age, such as high blood pressure. Puss-Puss was first diagnosed with hypertension three years ago and has been coming in to the clinic every three months to have her blood pressure check and medications adjusted.

Diabetes is a common disease in humans but it can also affect cats and dogs. Introducing one of our lovely diabetic patients Madigan, a 17 year old Burmese, who was initially presented to us with an upper respiratory tract infection after moving from Adelaide to Melbourne. On routine blood and urine tests while being hospitalised, it was detected that Madigan had excessive glucose (sugar) in his urine and blood. After more detailed testing, he was diagnosed as having both renal disease and diabetes.

Scooter is an eight year old domestic short-haired cat that has just been diagnosed with a liver disorder called lymphocytic cholangitis. Scooter's symptoms started off quite vague. She seemed a bit off color, became fussy with food, drank a little more than usual, and then developed some diarrhoea. Over the course of a few weeks she had significantly lost weight and her owners thought it would be best to bring her to the vet.

Laya is a beautiful four years old Burmese cat. One Monday night about 10pm, she was happily playing with a ribbon whilst her owner, Tracey watched on. Tracey saw Laya had the ribbon in her mouth, then it started disappearing down her throat until the whole ribbon had been swallowed. Now what to do? Was the ribbon likely to cause a problem?