BoomersWISE

Pet Dental Care Begins At Home
Guest article

February is National Pet Dental Health Month, and a great time to start home dental care for your pet. Dental health is important for overall health. Combined with the dental component of your pet’s annual wellness examination, a home dental care regimen can prevent pain and expense in the long run.

Brushing your pet’s teeth may sound like a tiresome task, but Dr. Bill Krug, a resident in veterinary dentistry and oral surgery at the University of Illinois Veterinary Teaching Hospital, says, “Please try it. Think about how youd feel if you went one or two days without brushing your teethnow think about what your teeth would be like after eight or nine years without cleaning.”

Like humans, pets can get bacterial and tartar buildup on their teeth, leading to deep gum disease, or periodontitis. The gums and underlying bone recede as a consequence of the untreated infection, resulting in loose, painful teeth, inflamed gums, and exposed roots.

“We see a lot of cases of severe damage and discomfort that could be prevented with regular dental hygiene,” says Dr. Krug. If the task of tooth brushing seems daunting at first, he suggests taking “baby steps” toward a dental hygiene routine.

Start gradually by holding your pet and looking into its mouth. (Of course, if you think you may get bitten, dont put yourself in danger, and find an alternative to brushing.) Lift the lips so you can examine the teeth. As your pet gets more comfortable with this, try putting some veterinary toothpaste on your finger and rubbing it on the teeth.

Some pets may find this a pleasant experience, since most veterinary toothpastes are flavored, and they may like the petting and attention. Many veterinary toothpastes fight bacteria and tartar by activating antibacterial salivary enzymes.

After your pet gets used to your rubbing its teeth and gums, you can try wrapping gauze around your finger or using a soft rubber finger brush on your index finger. This can help get more food debris off the teeth. With small strides like these, Dr. Krug says, your pet may let you brush its teeth with a regular pet toothbrush within a few weeks.

Brushing is the most effective way of removing food debris, thus minimizing bacterial growth and tartar formation. It takes a good deal of patience and persistence, but the few minutes a day you invest can prevent future discomfort, disease, and expense.

Dental disease is painful and can become costly to treat; untreated, it can lead to systemic problems such as kidney, liver, and respiratory infection as bacteria travel from the mouth through the bloodstream. Tooth and gum infections can weaken the facial bones and mandible, predisposing your pet to mandibular fractures and eye infections.

Although Dr. Krug insists that brushing is the best preventive measure against dental disease, he acknowledges that some pets just won’t stand for it. For those pets, alternatives such as rinses, chew toys, and special diets can help. Dental rinses that you can add to your pet’s drinking water can help reduce bacterial and tartar buildup.

Chew toys, such as rope bones, nylon bones, and crocheted “mice,” can help scrape food debris off teeth. Rawhide chews, too, can help clean teeth, but Dr. Krug advises against cow bones and pig hooves available in some pet stores, since they are hard enough to cause painful tooth fractures. Special dental chews, such as C.E.T. treats for dogs and cats, are infused with enzymes that help kill bacteria.

More brands of foods now offer “dental” formulas, and Dr. Krug explains that the strategy behind some of these diets is a larger size kibble that can scrape the teeth clean as the pet bites into the food.

Good dental care begins at home and can save pain and expense in the long run. For more information about a home dental care regimen, contact your local veterinarian or visit the Web site of the American Veterinary Dental College at http://www.avdc.org.

Kim Marie Labak
Information Specialist
University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine

Despite how much we now know about this subject, there is a distinct risk for mature adults to contract AIDS.

Though single boomers are having sex regularly, only 39 percent invariably use protection, according to [an] AARP study. “To me those are pretty alarming figures,” says Linda Fisher, AARP’s research director. From 1990 to 2004, the cumulative number of AIDS cases in adults 50 and older grew sevenfold, from 16,288 to 114,981. The increase reflects people who were infected early on and have survived because of antiviral medication, but experts who study aging and AIDS are concerned that the problem of new infections in older adults may be more serious than the statistics reflect.

Many boomers just don’t have a sense of danger about sex. They came of age before the HIV epidemic and never learned how to negotiate condom use or testing with their partners. In fact, women over 50 are at risk for developing HIV from heterosexual sex because their thinner vaginal walls are more susceptible to cuts and tears. Women of all ages represent the fastest-growing segment of new HIV cases, and the number of new infections among older women is rising rapidly: between 1988 and 2000, women’s share of AIDS cases among those 50 and older nearly doubled, from 8.9 percent to 15 percent.

Be smart about it. When a connection leads to sex, make sure it’s safe sex. Free love isn’t free anymore.

Ghostriding is the term given to a dangerous antic done while driving a car. The driver — yes, the driver – slows down the car so he and any passengers who want to participate can get out of the car and dance beside it or jump on top of it while it continues to move. They then try to jump back into the moving car. These exploits are often videoed by a friend. The term “Ghost Ride da Whip” is from a hip hop song.

All too frequently, the car goes out of control during the ghostride. Dancers can be injured or even run over by the car. The moving vehicle with no driver becomes a weapon. Falling off or even under the car is very possible.

In case you don’t believe it, see this mashup about it:

We used to call it just “networking” as in, networking for business. But then computer networking came along and now networking has attracted an adjective to differentiate it. I guess the young folks think that networking means laying cables and going to LAN parties.

A “social network” is a way to describe a structure of people or organizations in which they are connected by various social means, such as familial bonds, work relationships, or casual acquaintance.

The term “social networking” was first coined by J. A. Barnes (in: Class and Committees in a Norwegian Island Parish, “Human Relations”) in 1954. The maximum size of social networks tends to be around 150 people and the average size around 124 (Hill and Dunbar, 2002).

A social network is a social structure made of nodes which are generally individuals or organizations. It indicates the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds.

Modern applications of social networking include connecting with others via the Web. Communities such as MySpace.com and forums help people get together connected by a common bond or shared interest. Sometimes, a shared problem can bring people together as well, such as in depression forums and parenting groups. At the core are two needs: one, to connect with like-minded people, and two, to find information. Social networking helps you shorten the distance between two people. Now that we have a global village, social networking is even more popular.

For additional information see Social Networking in Wikipedia.

Remember when we had pajama parties? Or went sneaking off to a concert? The younger generations have taken this to a whole new level with technology. A LAN party is a get together of game players — mostly older teenage boys but not always — who bring their computers, their snacks, and their pillows to a conference hall or warehouse to play games all night or all weekend.

It’s quite an awesome sight. The key facilitator is the LAN (Local Area Network), created from miles of cabling which connects all the computers together for multi-player online gaming. The kids connect to each other and play games with and against each other. The more organized LAN parties are often sponsored by computer equipment manufacturers, software and game producers, and soft drink companies. Prizes are awarded for game play, and other competitions such as the best Case Mod (computer case modification).

These are usually very safe events with plenty of security and a good check in/check out procedure to ensure computer equipment doesn’t go missing. But as with every event where there’s a crowd, and plenty of distractions, some attention to personal security and belongings is a good idea.

For the duration of the party weekend, the participants play non-stop, breaking only for food, bio needs, and to sleep under the table their computers sit on.

One such LAN party is Fragapalooza, but if you search the term “LAN Parties” and your location you can probably find some near you.

Social Networking is a cultural phenomenon these days. From the MySpace.com craze to potentially powerful endorsements such as Rapleaf, people are using technology not only to connect but to validate each other in the relationship as well.

For the professional, LinkedIn offers career and professional services connections. You can invite someone to be part of your network, and if they accept, they conceivably bring along all the people who are connected to them as well. This is “the friend of a friend” connection taken into the 21st century.

What’s more, jobs that networked individuals are aware of are posted as well. We often say that getting a job is not as much about who you are as who you know. LinkedIn helps you leverage any personal connections to aid you in getting your toe in the door.

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 6.5 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 130 industries.

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you.

Social networking has come to the fore in a world where people are increasingly distanced from each other by stress and overwork, yet are electronically connected in an instant across vast distances. Dealing with this paradox requires the institution of new tools and folkways to integrate the technology into our working worlds.

Just as the Better Business Bureau did in the last century, social endorsement tools such as LinkedIn and Rapleaf provide a degree of trust and confidence when dealing with strangers one meets on the Web.

It’s the most interesting time of your life. Now if you could only share it with someone you love…

More boomers are single than any previous cohort of forty to sixtysomethings. According to the Census Bureau, 28.6 percent of adults age 45 to 59 were unattached in 2003, compared with only 18.8 percent in 1980. (Of those, 16.6 percent were divorced, 2.9 percent were widowed and 9.1 percent had never been married.) And many of these singles are on the prowl. In a recent AARP survey, up to 70 percent of single boomers said they dated regularly. Of those between 40 and 59 years old, 45 percent of men and 38 percent of women have intercourse at least once a week.

Dating after the age of 40 brings its own unique challenges. There may be encumbrances such as children who have not yet left home, or aging parents to look after. Previous unsuccessful marriages or relationships may have left an emotional residue.

On the positive side, we may have lowered our expectations somewhat, and become more tolerant of physical imperfections. We’re no longer looking for the perfect breeding and child-rearing partner, but a more intimate relationship with someone who is content with who we are.

Technology is helping us search for potential partners online. We can gather a great deal of preliminary information, and even participate in personality matching prior to establishing contact with someone we’d like to date.

It’s a whole new world for those back in the dating pool. The good news is, we have the wisdom to handle much better than we did in high school.

Obituary alerts? PUH-leeze! The last thing I want to know is that my friends are dying off. What nitwit decided that baby boomers wanted to be alerted to deaths? Trust me, this is not a selling point for a web site.

At BoomersWISE, we don’t insult your intelligence. We don’t focus on age, other than to acknowledge that at this stage of life, we have some unique challenges. It’s hard enough navigating this complex world without having to filter everything fifty times to get down to the information that is most important to us. As information professionals, we understand that. You don’t have a lot of time to mess around looking for stuff — you’re too busy living! Leave the dying to the octogenarians, we’re not there yet!

Tell us what topics interest you most and we’ll accommodate. Our team of professional writers and researchers will be bringing you the cream of the crop — the hot topics and key techniques for making the most of this great time in your life. And if it’s not such a great time, we’ll help you with that too! We’ve got the wisdom and the experience to know that by helping others, we fulfill our true purposes in life.

Isn’t that what social networking is really all about?

Concerned about your large breed dog’s health? If he is experiencing difficulty in walking, no matter what his age, he may be suffering from hip dysplasia, a common arthritis-like ailment particularly common in large breed or working/sporting dogs. For more information on this painful condition, see our article on Hip Dysplasia, its causes and treatments.

A web site, video, song, or other product that contains content from many other original sources combined to create a new product. While some mashups blatantly violate copyright, most are considered to be “fair use” creative compilations of material that has been made publicly accessible. Examples of video mashups can be found on Google Video. Mashups are often created in response to items in the news or just daily life. Good mashups are creative, innovative and result in something new and interesting. Then there are others that simply demonstrate the author’s inability to hold a coherent thought.

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