Q There are a lot of rumours that Parvovirus is back? How can we be sure our dogs do not catch this?

Anonymous A Parvovirus is a very nasty disease of dogs.

It causes a severe infection of the stomach and guts and results in vomiting and diarrhoea with blood.

Luckily there is a vaccine which can prevent the disease if dogs are given a proper course and boosters.

I suspect one of the reasons the virus might take hold again is the general lack of money around at the minute. Dog owners are perhaps delaying having their dog booster vaccination or skipping it altogether.

The message to all dog owners is to ensure their dog’s vaccinations are up to date. Meanwhile avoid contact with doggy gatherings where there is more risk of contacting unvaccinated animals.

Q We have a five-year-old female cat called Beauty. The last few weeks she has suddenly started to attack her tail, jumping around and attacking it when she sees it moving, as if she’s in a fight with another cat.

She is a very nervous cat and jumps at the slightest noise so I don’t know if it’s some sort of nervous obsession she’s developed.

We had her at the vet just over a week ago for worming treatment and mentioned her recent tail attacks, and the vet said to see how it went after the flea treatment, but she is still doing it nine days later. J. Toben, Oxford A This is relatively common and distressing for owner and animal alike and is most commonly associated with stress rather than specific tail disease. Stressed cats are prone to obsessive behaviour patterns like excessive grooming and this sounds like an exaggerated form of this type of behaviour.

The best approach is to attempt to de-stress Beauty.

Try to remove factors like loud noises from her environment. Your vet could prescribe a Feliway diffuser, a plug-in device dispensing calming feline pheromones into the atmosphere.

Sedative type drugs may also help control this obsession and these may be necessary if the plug-in does not resolve the issue completely.

Q My brother has had his dog Ben for six years. He is now 12, and although he has always suffered from a leaky bladder, it has got worse with age. We have been told by our vet that Ben could have suffered from ill treatment (kicking) which may have resulted in a bladder weakness. The vet has prescribed drops and at times these work but often have little effect. Mrs Shields, Summertown A Bladder weakness is quite a common problem in dogs but more so in ageing females than males.

In males it is most often associated with the prostate gland which lies right by the bladder outlet and can become swollen, inflamed and even develop cancer.

However, this is much less likely in a castrated dog.

I am not convinced by the ill treatment theory. There are no medicines licensed for the treatment of bladder neck weakness in male animals; that does not mean they will not work though Ben’s response to the syrup has been disappointing.

It may be time to see a specialist – ask your vet’s opinion on this.