About three million bucks. That’s what Pedigree paid for its excellent, thirty-second spot to air during tomorrow's Super Bowl. And that figure won’t include the cost of the ad’s development...or of it’s high profile “adoption drive,” apparently manufactured by Madison Ave to assuage the conscience of those who must down-size on dog food in this withering economy.

In a year where the big guys...

No, you don’t have to get rid of your pets during your pregnancy. You don’t have to fear interacting with them as you did before you conceived. I don’t care what your OB/Gyn says. I respond to a higher authority...the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). 

The CDC has issued statements that reflect the most well-reasoned recommendations for the prevention of infectious diseases. I...

OK, so you’re pregnant. Congratulations! And now your OB/Gyn has issued a list of concerns. Among them you might read a line-item or two on your appropriate interaction with pets. Some human docs may even suggest you adopt drastic measures to reduce your exposure to them, given that they may carry diseases harmful to your fetus. 

The wording under one local OB/Gyn’s “Pets and Your Pregnancy”...

Got mites? I certainly hope you don’t...but if you’re like some of my clients you may be convinced your cat just can’t get rid of her ear mite infection (though it’s been years now). Or maybe he lives mostly outside and he is chronically exposed and constantly infected, in which case you should really be doing something about it.

Whatever the case...there’s help. 

In fact, ear mites don’t...

Have you met Sparta? He’s the Sparta-cat of “Mean Kitty” fame. And whatever you may think of the aggressive-play, owner-cat relationship behind this Internet sensation, it’s clear Sparta is well-loved...

...and now he’s been diagnosed FeLV-positive, too. 

This post is dedicated to Sparta and his owners, who are doubtless experiencing the swirl of emotions this diagnosis confers. 

The...

Denial is a long river, they say. None longer than when applied to the case of the ectoparasites among us. Whether we’re talking lice on a kid’s head or fleas on a cat, many parentally invested parties refuse to believe.

Apparently, the humiliation experienced by caretakers of flea-challenged animals is as alive and well for some as the critters they deny.

To paraphrase Dr. Michael...

Can you believe it? California, Arizona and many municipalities within these states and others have caught the mandatory spay/neuter bug. And now it’s Florida’s turn…

Florida State Rep Scott Randolph brought the bill before the House on January 20th. Here’s the short verbiage (can’t download the complete one yet):

GENERAL BILL (Florida House Bill 451) by SR Scott Randolph

Sterilization of...

Let’s say you LOVE your veterinarian. Or maybe you don’t; but you still trust him. Of course you want what’s best for your pet and you’re smart. You understand that being a good client can make the difference between stellar care and the decent to excellent care you’re currently receiving.

After all, this is the person that can make the difference between life and death, comfort and pain,...

Your dog is all set to undergo a simple spay or—God forbid!—your kitty is scheduled for a major mass removal. You want the best kind of anesthetics and pain relievers. You may even be leery (if not downright afraid) of the anesthesia she’ll require for the procedure. But are you aware of the many choices for pain relief that can make anesthesia safer and dramatically reduce your pets’...

Is your pet scared of your veterinarian? Does she turn into a quivering mass of fur at the first turn in the direction of the veterinary hospital? Do his hackles rise at the sight of the kitty kennel? Does she put on the brakes, hide under chairs or howl when the fecal rod is revealed? Or is he so terrified he’s transformed into a growling, snapping land-shark when the veterinary staff...

“Speaking truth to power” is a great topic for a post penned in the hours between Martin Luther King Jr.’s 80th birthday celebration and the inauguration of our first African-American president…even if this is only a pet health blog.

His continued pursuit of this theme, expertly pioneered in the civil rights arena by MLK, is my primary wish for Mr. Obama’s presidency. We can only hope that...

Every year I attend “the world’s largest veterinary convention” in Orlando Florida. So known for its typically teeming attendance, this year’s version of the North American Veterinary Conference (NAVC) seemed a tad subdued, population-wise…and I think I know why.

Attending a conference is practically a mandated thing according to our professional requirements for continuing education (CE). It...

The cost of veterinary medicine is steep—we all understand this truism from personal experience…vets included. But the cost of veterinary care can be diagrammed on a price/quality axis so that owners can access a spectrum of these choices based on their needs, their goals and their ability to pay.

But don't be confused...this post isn’t about the many ways to get better quality care for your...

Always wanted to be a veterinarian and never pursued it? Well now’s your chance to wipe your brow in acknowledgement of that bullet you dodged…now that ‘veterinarian’ has been ranked 123 in a list of the 200 best and worst careers (right between ‘shoe maker’ and ‘forklift operator’). Seriously.

CareerCast is a human resources company that ranks the best and worst careers in an annual list you...

Birds hit airplanes every day. The aviation industry reports that an annual sum of $300 million is attributed to avian encounters of the closest kind. In the US, the industry’s recognition of this danger has even led them to designate a Bird Strike Committee to proactively address the kind of problems encountered by yesterday’s well-steered Airbus.

“It usually doesn't even register as...

Has your veterinarian ever graced you with his or her phone number? Was it by way of offering her best clients a chance to call her in the event of a serious emergency? Or does he give it away indiscriminately?...just in case.

I practice in the middle of a triangle of emergency hospitals. None is further than a mile or two away. Furthermore, my preferred place happens to be right across the...

After you’ve rescued a puppy from a nasty foreign body to the tune of an easy-handed bill for $800 the owner claims he left his wallet in the car. He then tucks Fluffy under his arm and skedaddles, never to be heard from again. That was a couple of years back. (This, after I did him a “favor” on the bill as those of you whose pets have had foreign body surgery can attest.)

This scenario has...

Got a dog or a cat? Check. What do you feed him/her/them? Check. Would you say that more than half their diet comes from commercial foods? Check. Do you trust your veterinarian’s advice on diet and nutrition? Check.

In the Dec 1st, 2008 edition of JAVMA (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association) there’s a short paper describing pet owner attitudes towards pet foods, nutrition...

Are your pets microchipped? My dogs are. But I’ll be honest and tell you that I've implanted ther chips with an expectation that their low-tech tags will speak louder than their hardware in a “lost and found” situation. The microchip is mere back-up. But in the event my dogs’ collars should somehow lose their way as well, I can always hope the microchip will help them get back home.

I rely on...

It’s like VHS over Betamax, the US standard microchips vs. the world’s ISO, the PC’s dominance over the Macs’ operating system, the Kwerty keyboard over other more intuitive models…

Though you may disagree with me on some of the above examples, the history of technological standards is littered with ways in which arguably far better models lost out over their lesser rivals. And it usually...

This news just in courtesy of Terrierman, Patrick Burns:

“The makers of Pedigree Dogs Exposed, the BBC documentary film that led to the BBC withdrawing from televising Crufts Dog Show in the UK are furious with PETA for jumping on the film’s bandwagon.”

If you’ve never seen this excellent documentary, here’s an exemplary clip. As its title suggests, it’s an exposé of dog breeding for the...

You think cancer’s so bad? OK, so maybe it is given the alternative of perfect health. But consider that cancer is eminently treatable. In fact, for cancer cases there’s a great deal veterinarians can do to prolong a perfectly comfortable life, sometimes well beyond all predictions so that pets can achieve normal lifespans.

The words cancer, neoplasia, tumor, oncology and malignancy may fill...

I’ve done the math. 21% of my clients opted to have their pets “privately” cremated in 2008. In 2003, only five years earlier, it was only 15%. It’s clear the demand for this service is on the rise.

In case you’re wondering what this kind of death service entails, “private” cremation means the pet’s corporeal remains are shipped to our local crematorium, placed on a tray. then individually...

Can you guess how many animals I euthanized last year?

Sadly, this morbid mental exercise is kind of like guessing how many jellybeans are in a jar. But it’s undertaken less as a senseless descent into morbidity than by way of reaching into my profession’s heart of darkness…and attempting an exorcism of the demons that live there.

That’s what whatikilledtoday is all about. In case you’ve...

Like many veterinarians with a bugaboo about access-to-care issues for pets of all stripes, I really like the idea of pet health insurance. Though the veterinary industry at large is still suspicious of what insurance for veterinary expenses might mean for the future of veterinary medicine (reference veterinary incomes), I’m optimistically gunning for the pet health insurance market to take...

The new year is upon us. Though 2,009 is just another number, the ‘turning of the clock’ always provides exciting new incentives to reassess the state of any given process. In this case, the process in question is the evolution of the veterinary industry.

There’s no doubt that veterinary medicine is rapidly evolving relative to almost every other medical field. The resulting change is...

Yes, veterinary surgeons use leeches. Mostly, this happens at the highest levels of vet medicine (usually in university settings) where degloving injuries, traumatic amputations, tissue flaps and non-healing wounds are commonly dealt with.

For the average veterinarian and pet owner, leeches might seem like a throwback to the days when George Washington was leeched and bled with regularity by...

Christmas Eve is not the best day of the year to come down with any illness that eludes obvious diagnosis. That’s what happened to the eight year-old Rottweiler who arrived as a last-minute emergency before we closed for last week’s holiday.

When she arrived, Trixie had been restless and uncomfortable overnight. Her owners suspected a serious flare-up of her arthritis and were seeking some...

Welcome to the first Dolittler post of 2009! Along with all the other resolutions I hope to keep, Dolittler improvement is on the list. But it’s not the pesky paragraph breaks and registration issues (though I promise I’ll get to those, too), it’s a bigger picture improvement you’ll get via its content.

As they say in the blogosphere, “content is king.” In other words, making Dolittler better...