I guess if the Slentrol isn’t an option and the diets haven’t yet worked  there’s always an animal cruelty charge someone can levy to light a fire under you butt. That’s what the owners of Rusty-the-morbidly-obese-British-wonder-dog came to know when his owners found their dog confiscated for cruelly facilitating his 161-pound obesity.

As reported diligently by Itchmo (sadly I can’t reference...

OK so I didn’t expect my first appearance on TV as a vet to be a national one. International, even, if you consider the broad audience of mixed nationality US Hispanics.

Nope. I expected something sleepy and local where I wouldn’t be up against all that cleavage! (If you’ve ever watched Univision or Telemundo you’ll know what I’m talking about.)

Tomorrow on 7:30 AM EST on Telemundo you too can...

There’s been some stress at my place lately, most of it taking place in the waiting room or on the telephone when clients let our receptionists know exactly how they feel about our prescription policy.

No, our policy has not changed. We still require bloodwork yearly to renew heartworm medication scripts, every six months for most of our chronic medication cases and even more frequently for...

Thursday, BFF Gina Spadafori over at PetConnection blessed me with one of her rare transcontinental phone calls to discuss the state of the pet world and our respective writing careers (hers in full bloom, mine barely budding).

At the outset Gina confided that she’d received a very legal letter from PETA demanding she retract a statement she’d made on her blog. Read the whole story here and a...

Living in Miami as I do I’ve been seeing serious flea cases over the past few months. Though it’s been cool and we’ve been suffering drought conditions for the third straight year, the fleas seem to be attacking with a renewed vengeance.

Maybe I say that every year. Indeed, I offered you a post not so long ago on the question of flea product resistance.

It’s true that my clients are convinced...

Here’s an interview with the folks at Vet-Stem and what they have to say on the issue of their new therapy for joint pain in pets:

Q: According to your literature, above all do no harm is Vet-Stem’s mantra in medicine. With that in mind, could you detail the major risks involved in VSRC?

A: In the Vet-Stem process, the animal’s own fat is collected by the veterinarian and Vet-Stem then isolates...

Last night was the variously dreaded and heralded meeting of Miami veterinary minds on the topic of Comfortis, one of the newest flea killers on the market.

As we snuggled into the dimly lit room’s conference-esque interior, wine glasses in hand, thirty or so of us were treated to a dermatology-themed lecture on the major issues facing flea-carrying pets. As waiters shuffled around, filling...

Vet-Stem is a San Diego-based biotech company that prides itself on thinking outside the box. In this case it’s looking “outside the joint” for solutions to the crippling arthritic pain our pets often face. Unsavory as it sounds, they’re doing this by getting a sample of your pet’s fat—surgically.

Vet-Stem Regenerative Cell (VSRC) therapy is the company’s term for a proprietary process in...

We love Vincent. He's spectacularly cute and a seriously skilled cuddler. But Vincent's not without his issues. In recognition of his anniversary with us and just because I thought it would be fun, here’s the skinny on how much Vincent’s cost me in his first year with me.

Are you ready?

Food

Since my dogs eat what I do except for a bowl of Solid Gold once a day, my food costs aren’t exorbitant....

You might have heard of her. She’s the ten year-old fourth-grader who so longs for vetdom she’s conquered the online coursework required to be certified as a "veterinary assistant." It’s clear Courtney Oliver has ambitions. But the news of her success hasn’t been as well-received in veterinary circles as it has by parenting blogs across the Web. 

Some reject her claims to hold this...

It’s not just the economy that’s withering. It’s the hay in the fields in the parched Southeast and the fat on the backs of horses who would consume it. It’s also the skyrocketing price of grain and the fuel required to move it. An NPR report this morning treated me to another sad story of increased equine abandonment with these explanations for owners’ rationale.

A veterinary industry...

I love love love kitties but my son is highly allergic and predisposed to asthma. The last time I brought a cat home (Helen, for the weekend) his face puffed up and the congestion lasted three days beyond her departure.

But I can’t justify keeping cats out of doors. Not when I know most of my local strays are FIV-positive. Not while I still occasionally take on the neighborhood detail of...

You’ve wanted to be a vet forever. That’s why you spent every last summer in memory working with animals. You made the grade in college by turning down party after party. You suffered the nailbitingly stressful application and acceptance process. You survived anatomy and physiology in year one and endless pathology coursework in year two only to wake up to a crisis of conscience in years three...

No, it's not a foray into a bad joke. It's my life at the moment.

I'm on my signifiicant others' tenth-year vet school reuniuon cruise to Belize and Cozumel. It's the first time I've been out of the country in twelve years...and I'm loving every minute--except for the hours I've spent worrying about how I'd ever manage to post my blog entries.

Shortly after embarking, I was informed that...

Hot on the heels of a post on what my neck suffers when I work is another physical issue I’ve been grappling with recently: To Lasik or not.

I’m a 400 girl in each eye (as of my last visit 6 months ago). Astigmatism, too. Prematurely ready for bifocals, even. With a prescription that changes yearly, my need for new eyeglasses is staggering. It’s a revolving door of frames for me. (And

“Sunshine, they say, is the best disinfectant. Disclosure may be more like a lightbulb, but it’s better than making what can often be life and death decisions in the dark.”

Why is it that I find myself quoting Christie Keith more than any other single pet health writer out there? Hmmm…

This morning over at PetConnection she posted yet another savvy piece on veterinary issues; this time on the...

My household has become embarrassingly exemplary of why snake-keeping is fraught with perils. In my acceptance of a reptilian pet (an "I-can’t-keep-her-can-you?" giveaway I took on 18 months ago), I thought I knew what I was in for.

Namely, frequent mice feedings (mostly live because my local snake store seldom stocks frozen ones), yucky snake-poopy cage cleanings and enough human-serpent...

One of my newest clients arrived at the office with reams of printouts in tow extolling the horrors of administering monthly poisons to protect our pets from heartworms. She also happened to live in the soggiest, boggiest part of Miami where mosquitoes are rumored to suck the life out of anything vaguely resembling a mammal.

Now, I’m not a big lover of poison therapies but, unfortunately,...

Wednesday’s case was a bad one from the get-go. A 4:30 call from the specialty hospital across the street asked if we would take on a client with $32 to spend and a pup on its last legs.

Bring it on. Why not?

In part, I confess, I did so because we have an excellent relationship with the hospital across the street. My significant other works there. They provide care for my own pets at cost....

I belong to the Florida Bar’s Animal Law Committee, a group I naively joined because I thought it actually had something to do with advancing the legal interests of animals. Come to find out they are so afraid of being perceived as an animal right’s group (gasp!) that the efforts to appear neutral in my mind defeats the purpose of having an animal law committee. Example, a...

Can you believe some people still tether their dogs? If you're like me you don't have to suspend disbelief. The evidence is incontrovertible--you can see it as you pass through neighbrhoods with small yards and incomplete fencing.

Dogs there are tied to trees or staked to a makeshift doghouse. They bark non-stop at anyone who walks past, lunging against their collars, rattling their chains.

In...

It’s too late after your Cavalier King Spaniel’s chewed through the power cord behind the fridge in your garage. She’s gone. And all those miscellaneous pills, baby toys and cat stool consumed?—not to mention the woodworking gnawed off your favorite chair. You could have avoided that, too.

Sure, a cage muzzle doesn’t scream, “I’m so cute you gotta pet me!” But it can save your butt when the...

“Conspecifics” they call them; members of the same species. Though goats will easily accept company from humans and horses, for example, they do best with those of their own kind.

After all, goats are herd animals. They’re social. They have a pecking order to some extent and seem to follow the leader (generally the smartest, most adventurous troublemaker). But they warm up to each other...

Betsy the Border Collie knows more than 300 words. Sure, she’s no Alex-the-African Grey. She won’t be speaking them anytime soon. But she knows them. She can act on them. And she understands them in different contexts, displaying a knack for abstract thinking we’d never before thought possible in animals—not to mention dogs.

So goes National Geographic's March 2008 cover story. It details the...

Part of the fun of being aboard a huge ship with a crew of your colleagues (as I was last week) is the inevitability of meeting someone whose interests and ambitions intersect with your own.

Among my new cohorts was a dual-boarded veterinary specialist in internal medicine and veterinary critical care (talk about an over-achiever!).

Though I’m not fit to lick her shoes—especially when it comes...

No, you’ll probably never notice there aren’t enough vets in town ready and able to attend to Fluffy’s healthcare needs. But you can be sure the average livestock owner has to wait an increasingly long while for the vet to come care for his or her population of critters.

Imagine owning a 150-head dairy farm in Pennsylvania and realizing your vet’s just retired. He’s done. Not coming back. And...

Fistulated cows serve both as supremely useful research/learning tool in veterinary medicine and PETA magnet. These are cows whose rumens (the largest of the four chambers in the bovine stomach) have been surgically attached to the body wall and made accessible to those curious about what lies beneath.  

Here's an up-close-and-personal pic:

By way of compensation, these cows get treated to a...

OK, so here’s the obligatory year-end review post on the largest pet food recall in history and what its angry public aftermath ultimately means for you and your pets.

In a couple of words?…not much.

Naughty, nasty companies. Let’s punish ‘em good. Never buy their food again. Make sure they shrivel up and die for what they did to our babies—or might have done.

One year later, though, I’m still...

A Florida State Representative from Plantation, Perry Thurston, is sponsoring a new bill to amend our existing “Damage by Dogs” statute. Currently, this Florida law limits municipal breed bans and instead holds owners of dangerous dogs liable for their pets’ damage. Representative Thurston would see this limit on breed banning lifted so that individual municipalities can more easily elect to...

Just made it through customs as of 10 AM EST. It's a good thing they didn't ask about all the baby goats I sidled up to in Cozumel with all the blisters around their mouths. In that case I'd still be in lockdown getting decontaminated and quarantined on some pier in Fort Lauderdale instead of posting pre-next week. (That was a vet joke. The goats were healthy, really.)

Though I was stressed out...

After last week’s post on cats and cars, one of your comments reminded me of a great solution for cats who need some stimulating sunshiny living: outdoor enclosures.

Excited by the prospect of pushing this point, I Googled “outdoor cat enclosure: and was rewarded with a bounty of web pages devoted to feline-ready fencing and playpens designed to provide safe and responsible out-of-doors...

(Until I can post again on my own two legs, here's a substitute post as timeless as tastelessness...)

I’m on a roll with the whole castration issue lately. It must be the stress. But here’s a pet peeve worthy of discussion. Well…maybe not, but here goes anyway.

Have you seen those big macho trucks on the road? The ones with oversized tires, Playboy-stenciled mud-flaps and perhaps a windshield...

(As you may well have noticed, my posting has become far less frequent than my typical. For that I heartily apologize--it seems that blogging does not work well on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (just letting you know should you ever try it). I have been unable to upload my posts due to poor connection (the connection times out before I'm able to upload) and my trusty Mac is not supported.

No, it's not a foray into a bad joke. It's my life at the moment.

I'm on my signifiicant others' tenth-year vet school reuniuon cruise to Belize and Cozumel. It's the first time I've been out of the country in twelve years...and I'm loving every minute--except for the hours I've spent worrying about how I'd ever manage to post my blog entries.

Shortly after embarking, I was informed that...

In the past month, three different publications have called me to get my take on the theoretically impending recession and how that’s affecting my income. It’s kind of a personal subject but I’ve never been known to be shy on the topic of my own finances.

In this case I’m happy to report that I’ve yet to see any changes in how my clients react to the news that their pets need X, Y or Z...

Yeah, it’s true. Most people have a built-in fear of bugs. For some unlucky souls, however, the fear is far greater than what most of us would consider rational. A significant percentage of the population is afflicted with this problem. Indeed, it’s common enough for the psychiatric community to have come up with a medical term for it: “delusional parasitosis.”

Yesterday’s post on bedbugs...

Every year, fleas and ticks headline the pet news. In the vet news, it typically begins in April with stories on what to expect from this year’s parasite season. Which diseases to look out for, what kind of new bugs might be in our midst, where they might be headed. It reminds me of the hurricane season reports that hit the southeastern US at the start of the season. And the reports are never...

Alex Krooglik is the co-ounder of Embrace Pet Insurance. His company is one of the newest entrants into the pet health insurance marketplace. As part of my pet health insurance series, here I get to ask him anything I’d ever want to know about his company, his business and why he does what he does.

Alex, how did you get into this line of work?

It started with a business plan back in 2003. While...

Here’s a long post on the HSVMA (the new vet organization started by HSUS) written for last month’s Veterinary Practice News. It's a cautionary article for vets but it works for Dolittler readers, too:

If you graduated from vet school after 1981, you’ll have heard of the AVAR. The Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights is an organization of 3,000 vets dedicated to the protection of the...

Last month I wrote an article for the March issue of Veterinary Practice News on the HSUS and its resemblance to PeTA (reference my previous post). In it, I urged that vets who would look to the HSUS’s HSVMA as an alternative to the AVMA might do well to consider otherwise. In response, I received numerous emails offering their point of view on what the HSVMA represents.

Among these came one...

It’s been a hit-by-car kind of week for kitties…

It started on Monday when I went for a lunchtime run and came across a neighbor’s cat who had sustained a gruesome and fatal traffic injury. Suffice it to say he’d succumbed instantly—this was no head trauma anyone recovers from under any circumstances. I’d had to peel him off the pavement in pieces—and for that I was grateful it was the...

So I guess it’s time to finally cough up the goods on the subject of pet health insurance. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to table your patience. The subject had gotten so big, broad and unwieldy that I’ll not have time to cover it in one single post. Over the next week, however, I’ll cover it all—or rather, I’ll attempt to.

I’m planning to bring it to you in several installments. The...

Like most vets, I recommend supplements; everything from multivitamins to therapeutic probiotics for optimal GI tract health. But not all vets expect your compliance on peripheral optimization of your pet’s health. In fact, many vets (albeit a dwindling number) still don’t actively recommend nutritional supplements, in spite of their well-accepted utility in vet medicine and their $1.3 Billion...

“When our pets are sick, they can't describe their symptoms, so we depend on veterinarians to tell us what's wrong. But are some vets are going too far, and taking advantage of helpless pets and their owners?”

Such is investigative reporter Ana Garcia’s intro for the “Vet Investigation” series undertaken by Los Angeles’ local NBC affiliate. Predictably, it’s generating significant consumer...

A new article in last week’s Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA) reported on the epidemiology of dog bites in Multnomah County, Oregon as tallied by its Animal Services department. The paper pinpointed those most at risk (5 to 9 year-old boys) and the profiles of the most frequent offenders (unneutered purebred males owned by lower-than median income households).

I...

As if cancer isn’t bad enough, chemotherapy decisions are grueling in pet medicine. I guess that’s inevitable. After clobbering the client with the C-bomb, it makes sense they’d shut down all rational faculties and hear the buzzing in their heads overwhelm my well-rehearsed  discussion of treatment options.

Gentle though we vets may think ourselves as we launch into the statistics and the...

I offer you this open letter to the lawmakers of Massachusetts now that this state has been recently targeted by the pet rental service FlexPetz. FlexPetz is a now-national chain providing pet rental services to those who would enjoy a pet but are unable or unwilling to make a firm commitment to one.

I’ve written about this issue before, which is why I was approached by a Massachusetts reader...

“She’s a beaut! But is the cargo space big enough for a dead Mastiff? Alright-y then. Wrap her up, she’s mine!”

Coarse though it sounds, that’s the reality of selecting a car for some veterinarians. Gas mileage, crash test results and comfort? Like everyone else, that’s where we start. But just ask Gina over at PetConnection . She knows there’s a whole lot more to take into consideration when...

OK, so I’m not a total newbie. I’ve had Poppy for a full year now and this goat is doing great—but she’s a Nubian-cross, not a full-blooded Nubian. This new girl’s all Nubie and ready to breed once she tops the ninety-pound mark.

Though goats are truly pets for me (in fact, I’ll probably never breed Poppy) I’ve always wanted to raise a milking herd. Tulip is my first foray into the milking biz...