Pet owners beware: There will come a time when your vet (or, God forbid, a specialist) will ask you to pay more than you’d rather fork over for the treatment of one of your pet’s maladies. Whether it’s an unforeseen illness (after eating out of the garbage, let’s say), devastating injury (the...

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the cat. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come here.”

Such is how I feel when faced with the Sysyphian task of taking on another ear infection—especially when it afflicts the same dog or cat I treated the month before. As many of you well...

The use of pain control medication in pets seems like a no-brainer to most of us—especially when it comes to seriously excruciating orthopedic surgeries. One US vet, however, maintains that it’s his prerogative to dispense with such niceties. Unfortunately for him, taking this stance in his...

Cats can be the snuggliest, cuddliest, most personable of pets…and then there’s the rare deranged feline. No, I’m not referring to feral animals with a biological rationale for appropriately aggressive behavior. Rather, I’m talking about the felid indoor fauna capable of launching a devastating...

Here’s another “only in Miami” story for you: Barbie, a sheltie owned by a murder suspect, was reportedly “dognapped” by a North Miami police officer after she was found at the crime scene with blood-soaked paws and a forlorn look on her face.

The officer took the dog home, she explained, so...

Pet insurance companies can now add another notch to their tally of marginally useful things achieved in the animal health arena. Their actuarial databases have uncovered the most entertaining top ten list since Letterman stopped being funny (OK, that was mean).

To the delight of vets...

Here's another Miami Herald column for you. I'm travelling in New York (yes, lucky me, I'm in Manhattan for the weekend)  but I'll be keeping up my posts--I promise.

Q. My cat Smushball has a hairball problem. For the last couple of months, she’s been throwing up hairballs at least three times...

New research shows that even pets get the blues during that time of year when the Earth is tilted away from the sun’s direct intervention. The waning light of winter certainly yields more depressive incidents among the human population—why not our pets?

The study, however flawed, at least shows...

After this week’s post on my freebie services, I started to feel unduly praised for the work I undertook on a dying cat’s behalf. I know that none of you willing to read this blog would fail to yield for a roadside feral cat half-kill or even a semi-squished suffering snake. So why praise the...

OK, here's another one of my Miami Herald artcles, reprinted from last week's Sunday Home & Design section. (No, they didn't print my title.) Enjoy!

Q. My husband and I are ecstatic—almost. We’re having a baby. But the obstetrician I’ve been referred to said we have to put our cats outside for my...

Begging your indulgence, yet again, I turn to the topic of my friendly neighborhood wildlife. Though my neighboring state’s governor might beg to differ (see what Georgia’s official peach has to say on endangered species, the drought and diverting rivers), the dear creatures in my backyard are a...

Sure, it seems an incongruous mix. But there’s a lot to be said for how our society deals in all four of the above categories of “goods.”

In case you haven’t read it, the title for this post is a direct reference to a fun read on the history of civilization (with particular emphasis on New World...

I mean, no one’s perfect. Not every household can handle a rescue dog, two cats and two meteoric careers. A mega-busy household is even less likely to take on this kind of stress with the typical aplomb of its other stellar endeavors. We understand. We forgive.

But don’t use your connections and...

Don’t worry, I’m not about to out some underground society where vets don black robes and bird-like masks at midnight before foisting poor Fluffy into one another’s arms like a hot potato. It sure sounds a heck of a lot sexier than this sport’s daytime reality—and yet the real version might...

No, I’m not about to launch myself back into last week’s snakepit on the issue of pets as property. Though there’s much more to be said on this worthy subject, my post today will confine itself to the use of words when it comes to talking about pets.

Words are a vet’s stock and trade. Sure, a...

There’s no way to know. Just as you’ll never truly understand whether your conception of the color yellow equals theirs, the sensations they experience will never be fully understood by us. So we must anthropomorphize, which is to say we have to use our human understanding, limited though it may...

As we all know, the French are champion diners. The tradition of the restaurant is more developed in this culture than in any other, and yet we turn a blind eye to the ways in which we could benefit from following their lead.

No, I’m not referring to the smaller portions, voluptuous sauces, or...

If only I had a dollar for every time I heard this line…“This breed is sensitive to anesthesia. You need to be extra-careful with them.”

I know the words are well intentioned and born of fear, not the I-know-more-than-your-vet-about-these-things breeder snarkiness we vets are too often exposed...

Like altogether too many of us, I confess to having reached a plateau of protective disinterest when it comes to the gritty details of the war in Iraq. The NPR reports on the numbers, attendant names, allegations and their deflections increasingly dissolve into a background of road noise,...

One of my longest-standing clients is also one of my favorites. He’ll consider anything I say—but a smart question is always sure to follow. That’s an admirable trait he’s honed to perfection in recent years as a result of his own illness—one which culminated in a kidney transplant about a year...

A few years ago my neighborhood had a bad cat overpopulation problem. I’d find kittens dead in the street and slinking ferals behind every nook and cranny in my overgrown yard. I took to setting a borrowed trap every night and ended up catching about one every other morning. At lunchtime, I’d...

I have this client…she raises dogs for fun and, occasionally, she profits financially, too. Mostly, though, it’s a labor of love—Rottweiler love, to be exact. Her most recent acquisition to her burgeoning pack of canines includes one very fancy pedigreed Rottie (for whom she traveled to Germany...

The Pandora’s Box I opened up by begging for your favorite pet sites is only just beginning to reveal itself…starting with this post. It was the Animalblawg site, written by a couple of Georgetown law students on the subject of animal rights law that sunk its claws right in and refused to let me...

Ever thought the Internet was limitless? I seem to have plumbed its depths with this one…finding a buck willing to donate his semen for a good cause: my Poppy’s pregnancy and milking potential.

It’s not as if I’m asking for a handout. I’m willing to pay handsomely for said buck’s smiling little...

I know I’ve hit the slaughter hot button a little too frequently lately but I couldn’t resist this one: Pigs being raised in Beijing are getting the royal treatment in preparation for slaughter—get this—so that athletes and other Olympic luminaries will have access to a safe supply of pork...

Every once in a while you get a really fun case. Here’s my definition of ‘fun,’ in case you’re wondering: 1) an even-tempered pet, 2) a willing, supportive owner, 3) a confusing series of clinical findings, 4) the diagnosis of something slightly odd but fixable and 5) getting to see the fix...

It’s Sunday morning and I’m all alone at the hospital. I’ve got phone calls to make, two stable liver kitties to medicate and fine-tune, my colleague’s Presa canario to babysit while he’s out of town (all 160 pounds of him) and then I’ve got these kittens…all these smelly kittens…

It looks like...

This week a warehouse space in Hialeah (a city within the greater Miami area) was ravaged in an electrical wiring-sparked blaze. There were no fire alarms and the owner kept no insurance. Over fifty souls perished. It was a tragedy all around. It made news in Miami but quickly fizzled, along...

Yep, it’s time again for the chronic vet industry debate I’ve hosted on this blog many times before. Again, it’s about us girls in white with the pet hair on our labcoats and the stethoscopes fashionably entwined ‘round our necks. And this time, no wringing of hands or gnashing of teeth—I...

There’s always a point in the treatment of any serious case when I’m forced to wonder what I would do if it were my very own pet's life-threatening crisis and not the patient's before me.

For some reason I can’t get past this inevitable moment. I know it makes me a prime candidate for...

We’re currently suffering such a chronic shortage of vet techs in our area that I’ve been told my hours might get cut short this coming month. Dr. Khuly? Do you mind working only in the afternoons while X technician is out on vacation?

Although I like to think I’m pretty efficient and can manage...

You know the song, Save a horse, ride a cowboy? I sure didn’t—that is, not until I started looking up ringtones for my new iPhone. But I figured that any song with that kind of title deserved a plug on an animal-themed blog, even one whose “family-friendliness” I work hard to maintain. And it...

For some reason (probably because vet medicine is more akin to other kinds of medicine than it is to being a lawyer, for example) I know a lot of human docs. Orthopods, neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons, dermatologists, urologists, neonatologists, radiologists, internists, pediatricians,...