Right up front I’ll say it: I detest flea collars. I think I’d rather have fleas on my person than risk my dogs’ health with flea collars.

I’ll probably get in hot water for saying it (I’m sure to get at least one terse email from an industry spokesperson). I know from experience: When I filled out a survey for Hartz last January at a vet conference, I was met with a [polite] dressing-down...

You heard right. I’ve been known to take in foster dogs aplenty, kittens in spades and the occasional wayward bird or snake. But this one’s extra-special. She’s a goat…really.

In case you think our traditional pets are the only ones at risk for abandonment, consider the case of my new foster goat: Found tied by a long, thin rope to the back of a trailered boat on our new tech’s semi-rural...

Your older kitty seems to get skinnier every day—but his appetite? It’s better than ever! Somehow, the early signs of weight loss in the face of a good appetite seem to go largely unreported. Mostly because cat people are happy to see their kitty eat so well, but also because they know all those extra pounds were making him sluggish and slow.

But by the time owners notice their kitty’s gone...

"First it was necessary to civilize man in relation to man. Now it is necessary to civilize man in relation to nature and the animals."

-Victor Hugo

If you’ve never read this quote before, you’ve been missing one of the most concise and eloquent historical analyses of the global environmental movement. My favorite word in this snippet? “Necessary.”

Yet we don’t all agree on Mr. Hugo’s fine...

It’s been a tough week and not least because it’s early kitten season around these parts.

I’d probably delight in kitten season (kittens are, after all, supremely delightful creatures) were it not for the obvious: disease and death of the oft-unhealthy foundlings. As if that wasn’t enough to bring on nightmares, vet hospitals get an extra dose of stress in the guise of in-house kitten...

I have a great new patient. Her name is Proofy. She’s a Greyhound, as her glamour shot shows. Her racing name was “Proof in the Puddin’” or “Proof of Speed” or some other such insult to her current life as a pampered housepet in a loving home.

Much as I try to retain any semblance of objectivity on the dog racing thing, I have a really hard time with it—as a vet, as a Greyhound fan and as a...

It’s time for Dolittler's Second Annual Pet Food Recall Awards!

(For the record, the First Annual Pet Food Recall Awards was kind of boring: Diamond Pet Foods swept in all categories. This year’s awards are far more exciting!)

The Insomniac Award (for its round-the-clock work to prove that one in six animal deaths in a controlled setting really can be the result of a toxin in pet food and not...

Somewhere amid the hubbub of the week’s news I failed to inform you, my confidants, that my very own dog has caught the bug. Considering his lifestyle (he puts in as many hours as I do at the hospital) the occurrence of something nasty was inevitable.

No, it’s not the predictable kennel cough or the foul dog flu thing (the latter would be devastating). No, I’m referring to the dreaded mange...

The last 24 hours here in South Florida have been rainy ones. Brief squalls with light thunder have left us a little wetter than we expected. It’s an early reminder of what comes with each year’s long Miami summers: heavy rains, booming thunder and the threat of hurricanes.

As much as we hate to get the frequent drenching (no umbrella helps—I wear New England “foul weather gear” even in the...

You may not remember the Xylitol thing. It’s the artificial sweetener now known to cause liver failure in dogs. (See my post from last October.) This past Monday, USA Today published an article on this recently discovered toxin alongside the pet food recall announcement.

A conclusive study was done in September of 2004 demonstrating the high degree of toxicity of this common industrial...

Want a little uplift in your day? (We all need a little respite from the frustrations of this week’s news and angst.) Try on a few of these embarrassing moments stolen either from a colleague’s entertaining career or my very own as an antidote to what ails us:

1-There was that time when the lanky Doberman jumped up on his owner, hooking his claw into the V of her cleavage, thereby dislodging...

It’s already been said on this blog and now I, too, will join the growing chorus of vets: Where was the heads up? Where was the newsflash warning us of the impending storm?

Where were the emails and faxes from the pet food companies? Why was no information provided to the distributors? Why were so many vets (busy reading their Journals instead of the newspaper all weekend) blasted on Monday...

Just last week I posted an entry on what I feed my dogs. And many of you responded with comments on your own beliefs and experiences. Some of you even chastised me for my choices. It’s all fair game. For the most part I took it in stride (except for a little testiness there at the end), basking in your informed opinions in spite of the mild battering.

So here’s the mea culpa: I stand...

Every so often (at least a couple of times a week or more), prospective clients call with a few choice questions: How much is an office visit? A spay? Vaccines?

It tends to stop there. The caller typically acts horrified and hangs up in a disgusted huff: “How dare they?!,” I can almost hear them say (though I am on the other side of the room working on my charts and trying hard not to pay...

Since I submitted my last whiny post (which of the many?) on the very sad loss of my favorite tech—and yet another decrying the sad state of affairs in hiring decent employees—I’ve had occasion to reconsider and reaffirm both positions on the subject.

I’ll get the depressing one out of the way first: One of our new workers is a disaster. Hard as I work, personally, to train her to be a better...

I have a good reason for writing this article right at this moment. I should be getting gussed and laquered up for an impending date with the Cleveland orchestra. Instead, I’m sitting in my house in front of my laptop wearing a mu-mu (yes, even the chicest of vets has been known to don a fashionable, Target-designer special mu-mu).

Why do I offer up this [potentially embarrassing] confession?...

Yesterday’s sickest patient was a perfect example. Jefferson came in at nine AM with no appointment. His owner explained (in dulcet, southern accented tones dripping with apology) that he just wanted to weigh his dog on a proper scale, as he seemed to be losing some weight.

After the technician weighed Jefferson and confirmed a ten-pound drop over six weeks, the client asked if he could take...

Got an older kitty? Or maybe a not-so-old kitty with a few extra pounds on her bones? Consider that perhaps the most unthinkable feline malady—osteoarthritis—may be slowing her down…a lot.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a kitty named Meow. Meow’s owner, a new client, was wondering how Meow’s spine got to be so prominent. She was also wondering why her coat was getting “greasy” and “piecey” on her...

Yesterday one of my dear readers sent me a link to an occupational hazard I’d never considered possible in veterinary medicine: toxic gas exposure.

Apparently, a dog ingested some unknown chemical, became ill and emitted sickening fumes as he was being treated at an animal hospital. Vet and staff had to call in a human medical team to care for their own reactions to the offensive agent.

As I’m...

You asked and I’ve answered. Enjoy and try not to get too rough with me in your comments.

So you want to know what I feed my dogs?

The short answer first:

At home I feed Iams kibble mixed with whatever else I’m eating (or cooking with). At work? Z/D wet (a hydrolyzed nutrient source food made by Hill’s) mixed with lunch leftovers.

And now for the long version:

Am I addicted (or otherwise...

Yesterday’s patient, Boo Boo the Shar-Pei/Rottweiler mix (a striking animal, I assure you), lent me the brilliant idea of penning this post in his honor. Poor Boo Boo. He was not exactly pleased to have been [literally] dragged in by his owners.

First, we had to empty the waiting room. (No dog could be risked within ten feet of Boo Boo’s lunging distance.) Then we corralled him into an exam...

I’ve been chastised in recent days for the overtly negative, often political, and generally non-animal-y tone of my recent posts (no, not just by you, catmanager). OK, so perhaps you have a point. As an act of contrition, today I will submit a post replete with the “sweetness and light” I promised a couple of days back.

Lest my individual, opinionated thoughts mislead you, my general worldview...

As a vet you get propositioned a lot. And, no, it’s not what you’re thinking. In Miami I get phone calls or letters every month or so asking if I’d like another job. Believe it or not, it’s difficult to find a reasonably good, bilingual vet around here. In fact, I get propositioned so often you’d think it was hard to find any vet around here—any vet that’s a potential free agent, that is.

It...

Love, respect, and adoration for the lives of the abused and neglected creatures in our community—that’s one thing. Blind obsession bordering on zealotry—quite another.

I have a great story that illustrates the extremes the bullheaded, ignorant and fanatical will go given one sad unfixable puppy and enough money to run a shelter…into the ground.

Everyone involved shall remain nameless—though...

A recent article detailing the results of three AVMA-commissioned studies appeared in a popular trade publication last week. The title of the article? “Publicly revered, professionally taxed.” This headline aptly condensed the result of these multiple survey studies.

The upshot? People think we’re the most honest, respectable professionals when compared to physicians, attorneys, politicians...

I confess: I listen to way too much NPR programming—and I generally enjoy myself. During yesterday’s drive home, however—exhausted and looking forward to a calm night of childcare responsibilities (not!)—I listened with mouth agape at the salaries some newly-minted attorneys take down relative to their student loans (numbers like $150,000 annual incomes relative to $70,000 debt). Transpose the...

I’ve deliberated all weekend over whether this story needs telling, especially given my general sensitivity to mental health issues among my clients. And so I disclaim: any resemblance in this tale to persons living or long-dead is a mere coincidence. Rest assured, I have also changed the names and physical characteristics of this client in deference to his privacy.

(Is that acceptable enough...

Did you know that you may well be your vet’s most valued possession? Without you your vet can’t help animals and most certainly can’t earn a living.

Our clientele is the lifeblood of our industry and the most important “item” that’s sold when practices change hands. All that equipment? Nah—most of it is already five years old and wiped off the books by now. But you? You and your pets might as...

Today I saw Miss Lola, one of my cutest little Poodle patients. (Why are they all named Lola?) After spending the better part of her first year of life suffering from  various and sundry gastrointestinal maladies, she’d finally been free of us for over three months. And so it was that yesterday, during her first annual checkup (technically undertaken at sixteen months of age), Lola seemed in...

I confess: perhaps my worst trait as a vet is my reluctance to return phone calls of a generic nature.

Imagine a non-desk job (I literally have no desk) where you’re on your feet all day attempting to attend to appointments and hospitalized patients in a timely manner. In the hallway is a lucite message cubby where I can see exactly how many telephone messages are piling up as I try to keep up...