Season Opener: Check your dog’s and cat’s symptoms online!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO AT MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Transcript from this week’s episode of The Web-DVM:

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, to a new season of The Web-DVM. Thank you so much for continuing to take the time to watch the show. As promised, I have a big announcement about a project I dedicated a lot of time to over the summer.

Many of you who watch are YouTubers that have subscribed having come across my webcasts by chance, through search engine, or through word of mouth. What many of you are not aware of is that this webcast was originally meant to be a media supplement to a veterinary health information website I founded called Web-DVM.net. In short, this show and my BlogTalkRadio podcast were just created to add some spice and updated content to what I deemed the much bigger and more important Web-DVM.net. Little did I know that this webcast and my podcast would take on lives of their own, drawing thousands of viewers and listeners each week.

But Web-DVM.net remains, receives 50, 000 unique visitors per month, and is a project I am still very proud of, especially now that I have added a virtual dog and cat symptom checker. That is, if your pet is exhibiting signs of illness or disease, you can go to the Web-DVM.net symptom checker and use the tool to try to narrow down what may be wrong with your pet. The symptom checker provides the user a set of possible causes of disease, each with a link to an in-depth article about each given condition. Best of all, it is free to use at your leisure, without need for any registration or login. Just show up and use it. Here is a brief example of how it works.

Pause for symptom checker illustration

Pretty cool, huh? Now, while I invite you to use the Web-DVM.net symptom checker as often as, and whenever you like, please let me be clear that it is not meant to be a replacement for your veterinarian. I will repeat that one more time, it is not a replacement for your veterinarian. It is an educational tool only meant to aid pet owners understand if a certain set of signs can mean there is disease present, while also getting an idea of the urgency associated with a particular set of signs. That said, enjoy it, and thank you once again for remaining a fan of my show. Please join me next time, when I will be answering the ever so common question, “Why do some dogs and cats eat grass?”

Dr. Roger Welton is the President and chief veterinarian at Maybeck Animal Hospital in West Melbourne Florida, as well as CEO of the veterinary advice and health management website Web-DVM.net.