Here’s another entry born of an email response to Monday’s post on how to identify quality in veterinary care. This time, it’s related to my comment on the issue of compassion in veterinary medicine––particularly with respect to high-priced, technically savvy hospitals where concern for the owner’s pocketbook takes a back seat to what’s best for the pet.

The suggestion led one emailer to ask...

After yesterday’s post on how to spy quality in veterinary care, I received an email asking this simple question (and I paraphrase): How do I know if my veterinarian should be referring me to a specialist? What are these “complex” situations you allude to in your post and how would I know if I’m being led astray?

Excellent question! More so because there’s no clear answer. While our leading...

It’s not unusual for landlords and condo associations to be picky about pets in ways that aren’t always best for the people who love them. Pet limits on species type, their weights and their numbers are standard fare when you live in small-box, close-quarter housing. And we all get that. You can’t exactly expect neighbors to get along when someone wants to run a rescue out of his 800 sf...

In his “Let Them Eat Dog: A modest proposal for tossing Fido in the oven,” which appeared in the Wall Street Journal’s Life and Style section last Saturday, acclaimed novelist Jonathan Safran Foer tackles a topic we treat here on Dolittler with occasional regularity: eating animals.

In advance of his first nonfiction book release––title eponymous with topic––Foer’s WSJ contribution was enough...

Last Sunday’s Style section of the New York Times bravely plastered not-so-stylish images below the fold on its front page: A sliced-up hog carcass alongside a cleaver-wielding student of animal slaughter under the title, "Slaughterhouse Live."

Saw III references notwithstanding (it is Halloween week, after all), the idea was not so much to disgust as to showcase the apparent delight some...

Today over on PetMD’s DailyVet, I’ve penned a post on the subject of declawing and the debate that rages within veterinary medicine over its legal status. As if the issue wasn’t contentious enough, California’s inner battles have served to highlight the divisions among our ranks with respect to the procedure’s appropriateness in our surgical arsenal...or lack thereof.

Personally, I detest...

Conde Nast has got me pegged. I’ve been a subscriber to Gourmet Magazine on and off for the last twenty years. Vogue is the only fashion rag I’ll actually spend money on. And if I had the time, I’d read Wired and The New Yorker cover to cover. Most other magazines are far more worthy of my recycling bin than my attention.

Yet Conde Nast (publisher of all my faves) has recently decided that...

No, your pet does not have a hang-up about his burgeoning mirror image. She does not hide at home in embarrassment when she could saunter saucily down the street in all her Rubenesque glory. Nor will he shrink under your critical gaze as you consider his striking resemblance to that ottoman you saw at Pottery Barn.

No, pets are not like us. They do not suffer the slings and arrows launched by...

If you live in Seminole County, Florida and you want the least expensive pet care to be had, you can mosey on over to the shelter and get tax-subsidized, full service veterinary care––which, of course, means that members of the Florida Veterinary Medical Association (FVMA) are up in arms (yet again).

Not only do many FVMA members rail against tax dollars applied indiscriminately to the...

Here in Miami I get plenty of clients who send an “agent” to do their veterinary business. Instead of seeing a pet owner face-to-face, I get the happened-to-be-available husband, the housekeeper, the man-servant or the could-care-less son who happens to be home from college. 

As I muddle through my obligatory history-taking in these cases, it’s clear there is no bond. In fact, it inevitably...