Archives: Uncategorized

FIP – Feline Infectious Peritonitis – May No Longer Be A Death Sentence For Cats

Long considered an imminently fatal infectious disease in cats, feline infectious peritonitis, aka., FIP, may now be treatable in some cats infected with the disease. This comes, unfortunately, with one giant caveat: the antiviral agents that seem to have some efficacy in treating the disease, GS-441524 and GC376, are not FDA approved, still held up in clinical trials. ...

Choosing The Right Surgical Repair For Dog Cranial Cruciate Ligament (CCL) Tears OF the Knee

The cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) is the major stabilizing ligament that lies deep within the knee joint in dogs and serves a similar function as the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in people.  Rupture or tear of this ligament is a very common injury in the hind extremities of dogs.  Rupture of the CCL causes a forward thrust, also known as a sheer force, of the tibia...

Recognizing Warning Signs Of An Aggressive Puppy

Puppies are commonly “mouthy” and nibble on an owner’s hands as you play with them and sometimes they will make little growls as they do so, even accidentally break skin if one is not careful. To some degree, this can be normal, as this is behavior they exhibit with one another’s littermates in a litter setting. It is still not necessarily...

In Dogs, Cats Senior Age is Not a Disease!

Maybe I am getting impatient as I get on in years of practice, getting older and crotchety myself, or perhaps it is just that after 19 years of hearing the same reservations from pet owners and having the same talk with them to alleviate their reservations over and over and over and over again…that I am just sick of it. Whatever the case, it simply grates on me...

Beware of Your Dog Ingesting This

You may not recognize what this is but it is a component to common dog toys, specifically the ones that squeak – pictured here is the squeaker within the toy. They can be particularly dangerous because some dogs become obsessed with getting to the source of the noise made by squeaky toys and proceed to tear them out. If they are swallowed, they pose a risk of...

Dogs Being Trained to Sniff Out Coronavirus in People

photo credit: http://abcnews.go.com Dog have a long established history of being able to detect health conditions in people. There are service dogs that are trained to predict or recognize seizures in epileptics to assist in protection and alert. There are dogs that can sniff out cancers of the skin and and internal cancers that result in a change of smell in the...

Stop Catering To Your Finicky Dog!

Sorry, no sugar coating here! Perhaps THE MOST IRRITATING part of my job as a veterinarian is when dog owners whose dog may not be particularly food motivated go out of their way find new foods to entice him to eat. Often, they resort for the most unhealthy dog food options that are loaded with fillers and sodium that may be attractive to the dog but in reality he would...

Why Are Veterinary Clinics So Unusually Busy During The Coronavirus Pandemic?

While many small businesses are experiencing major slow downs in business during the coronavirus pandemic, the trend in veterinary clinics across the nation is opposite. Across the country, my clinics included, are experiencing record caseloads with many veterinary clinics booked out days to weeks in advance and operating well beyond capacity. It is not unusual to...

Can Your Dog or Cat Transmit Coronavirus?

Dogs and cats can indeed transmit coronavirus, but ONLY to their fellow members of their owner respective species. They CANNOT transmit coronavirus to people, nor can people transmit coronavirus to them! So please refrain from putting silly masks like this on your dogs and most certainly do not even remotely entertain giving up your pet as tragically so many out of fear...

How NOT to clean your pet’s ears

I am frequently asked to look at a pet’s ear because the owner noticed a discharge. Sometimes they will proudly say “…so I cleaned it with ______!” Often I find myself cringing. First, don’t clean it before the vet sees it – it’s like tampering with evidence (here’s my article on the importance of ear goo). Second, most things we use to clean a superficial cut...