The problem with this Good Morning America segment on the ABCNews website is all in the title: “Poisonous People Food.”

Beyond the scary headline, everything contained therein is pretty responsible, just like everything else Dr. Marty Becker works on. My criticism is confined to the acknowledgment that whenever “people foods” get singled out for their evils (even in this case, where toxic...

Your dog or cat’s had surgery, an IV catheter or an ultrasound and the only sign of its ever having taken place is the wide swath of hair loss the clipper blades left behind in their wake…six months ago.

Six months!

Clearly that’s not right, you say to yourself. Your vet might even shrug his or her shoulders in the way we do when more pressing cases (like the cat trying to die in the oxygen...

Despite the cheeky title, flatulence can be a serious business, indeed. You’ll agree with me if you’ve ever lived with a bulldog or boxer. And you’ll understand this perfectly if your pet suffers from certain chronic gastrointestinal disorders.

Yet in vet school I don’t recall this topic ever getting its due. The flashier subjects of diarrhea and vomiting always overshadowed “excessive...

It’s not just the simple bite wounds sustained during a brief brawl at the puppy park. It’s also the crushing injuries, the broken bones and the bleeding lungs that are at stake when pets get into it.

The worst cases are fall under the category of “BDLD” (“big-dog-little-dog”) interactions or occur when cats get handed the business end of a dog’s maw. In these cases the aggressors are usually...

Ever thought you wanted to be a large animal vet? For a while, I did, too. I was one of those “horsey” girls. You know the ones—played the Pony Club, leased horses in middle school with spare change (or managed to find a way to get their parents to pay for it). They’d do anything for those creatures.

Fast-forward ten years and vet school’s in her sights. But all she hears after subjugating her...

Yep. For those of you following the saga of my ten year-old French Bulldog and her brain tumor the news is in: Sophie Sue is officially 100% done with her radiation treatments.

The upshot? It’s no stretch to say that six weeks and 18 radiation sessions later Sophie Sue is a new dog.

From an emaciated dog too weak to stand upright or swallow her home-cooked meals to a robust, rowdy Frenchie...

At least two or three times a week I’m finding it necessary to ask my clients to get more technologically savvy when it comes to their pets. No, it’s not about the novel drugs and specialty veterinary services. Not this time. Instead, this post is about PetCams and other high-tech means of documenting pet health concerns.

But you think these PetCam gadgets are kind of hokey, right?

Sure, it’s...

Do you Dogster, Catster, Petster, Dogbook or Doggyspace? You might think I’m a tad kooky for admitting to this, but I do.

My dogs have profiles on Dogster and Doggyspace. Granted, Dogster is my preferred network for all its accoutrements and longevity, but I just had to check out Doggyspace once Time Magazine profiled it last week in a short, interesting article on social networking “for...

I just read an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution Online on a Lab mix named Batman and his role in the quest for the cure. Yes, in case you haven’t been aware, pet volunteers are sometimes employed in the search for a cure to cancer.

In this case, Batman’s vicious glioma, the kind of tumor Senator Kennedy and my Sophie Sue also have in common, is being treated with a novel technique...

Here's a recent Miami Herald article I wrote in response to the outcry over a dog's shooting death during a dog fight. It received lots of mail (not all supportive) from those who thought I should've mentioned neutering as a preventative measure. Here's the piece. Chime in (and remember when considering my cursory treatment that in the newspaper I'm strictly limited to 400 words).

Q: There was...

Ever wondered what you would do if you suddenly woke up one morning to find your child’s ears acutely painful and it turned out to be your new puppy’s doing? Indirectly, of course, that’s exactly what happened to my neighbor and longtime client, Manny.

I work in a strip mall in South Miami next to a Cuban bakery that’s been there ever since I can remember. Manny is the owner and, like his dad...

Lots of pets who would otherwise never so much as curl their lip in a human’s direction suffer the embarrassment of having their veterinary files adorned with stars, dots and “Will Bite!” invectives.

This too-common problem often arises not in the first few well-pet visits but soon after some social maturity sets in—usually between six months and two years of age. Unfortunately, this timing...

After a day of hurricane preparations and a night of intense, windy rain squalls here in South Florida, I figure it’s time to give you a download on issues to consider when a storm or natural disaster leaves you hunkering in your home with your pets.

Of course, this assumes that you’re not evacuating your abode after making a careful decision regarding the safety issues you and your pets will...

Chronic renal disease (often plainly labeled “kidney failure”) in cats is one of the most frustrating feline diseases for everyone involved. From the patient to the owner to the pet’s healthcare providers, chronic kidney disease just plain sucks.

Most commonly, as those of you reading this probably already know, the demise of the kidneys in these cases is attributable to a degeneration of the...

Yesterday’s emergency patient arrived after she’d collapsed at the groomer’s after a rough night of intermittent restlessness. She’d perked up with a pain-reliever by breakfast-time (prescribed for her severe osteoarthritis), which is presumably why her owner thought she’d keep her appointment with the groomer.

In hind-sight it’s obvious her first step should’ve been the vet’s—though the end...

No doubt the pet insurance world is hoping their business is recession-proof—perhaps even recession-fueled.

It’s clear that having less money with which to pay for your vet expenses must leave lots of pet owners standing outside their vet’s place, credit card statement in hand, echoing Scarlett O’Hara’s immortal sentiment: “God as my witness, I will never let Fluffy live without pet insurance...

Ten years ago pet owners had only a handful of sites to choose from when it came time to research a variety of medical conditions their pets might confront. Renal disease, diabetes, hip dysplasia…these biggies always had an online presence. But lesser known pet health concerns were relegated to the very few sites attempting an encyclopedic approach to pet healthcare.

Fast-forward to 2008 and...

Yeah, it’s been rough in the equine sporting world lately. Eight Belles gets put down on the track at the Kentucky Derby. Big Brown’s cracked hoof might’ve had a thing or two to do with his career’s skid to the finish at the Belmont. Of course there’s the saga of Barbaro’s untimely demise after a catastrophic fracture in a Preakness two years’ prior to this. And there’s always Christopher...

Q: What’s worse than having to force your pet to wear an Elizabethan collar?

A: Your vet’s having to rely on your commitment to the E-collar for the success of his/her patient’s condition.

That’s why vets often like to offer no-excuse regimens via mandatory E-collar to help keep pets away from the site of contention.

But there are owners who downright refuse to place a lampshade collar around...

Though vets are on the front lines of animal welfare concerns at all levels of animal husbandry and care, some savvy vet-watchers think vets care less about animal welfare than most people might assume.

That’s because the American Veterinary Medical Association (the leading professional organization in veterinary medicine) has visibly denied animals their due on a series of important animal...

I’m going to jump on Dr. Marty Becker’s bandwagon today. Since this PetConnection team member was on Good Morning America today showing most of the US how to save money on their pets I thought you, my tinier audience of devoted pet people, would like a top eight from my own files (with Dr. Becker’s points added in):

1-Feed your pets what you eat as a supplement to their regular diet.

Cook meals...

Never did I think I’d be pushing my late thirties with the amount of debt I currently juggle. Now I can thank my Sophie Sue and her expensive brain radiation treatments at Cooper City Animal Medical Center for finally bringing it all to a head (excuse the pun).

Sitting in the parking lot waiting for her treatment to conclude last Friday I finally experienced the epiphany I required: Making...

Lies, Damn Lies and Pet Store Lies

Below are a few whoppers pet store employees will tell you when trying to convince you that you should buy their product :

1.    “Our puppies don’t come from puppy mills.”

Pet stores blatantly deny that their puppies come from puppy mills, and instead assure you that their puppies came from “private breeders” or “reputable commercial...

Got an aging pet on your hands? If you don’t you may well soon, so pay attention:

From the files of “I-believe-it-because-my-behaviorist-told-me-so” comes a new approach to treating cognitive dysfunction in aging pets.

“Cognitive dysfunction”—as in, sometimes disoriented, occasionally confused, often engaging in repetitive behavior such as circling and pacing, exhibiting altered sleep/wake...

Knowing me to be full of crotchety opinions in all things veterinary, a colleague recently asked me to enumerate my top pet peeves in vet medicine.

But like a foodie asked to list her least favorite dishes, I was reluctant to rank my curmudgeonly views on my own profession, especially since I do love it so, faults and all.

Still, I thought it would be valuable to pen a post on this, especially...

You’ve heard about the five Boogers right? No, it’s not the opening line of a coarse joke. I found it in this week’s dog news:

There are now five Booger’s because Booger #1 was the pit bull who saved her mama’s life and consequently sent this owner scrambling, post-mortem DNA sample in hand, to South Korea for a chance at the litter of her dreams: Five Booger clones!

God help me if I know why...

by Roxanne Hawn

I’ve written about veterinary medicine for both trade and pet outlets since 1995. I originally researched and wrote this feature article for a national veterinary magazine in 2005. It’s a long story why it never ran, but I still find the implications interesting. Since I haven’t had recent contact with the doctor examples, I used Dr. A, B, C, etc. to protect their privacy. The...

Anyone who’s kept up with my blog entries probably knows my opinion on part-time pet ownership. So you can easily imagine my skull imploding over breakfast yesterday after spying the headline of a front page article in the Wall Street Journal.

“An Idea Whose Time Has Come: The Time-Share Dog.”

Seriously?

Not that the article concludes in favor of shared dogs, not when you consider how it...

Have you ever considered having your pet undergo the temperament testing and health checks needed to become a therapy pet? If so, this post is for you.

Consider that what we know about pet therapy has always been in the positive arena of what pets can do for hospitalized patients, the elderly, reading-challenged children, etc. There’s no doubt that the benefits are nothing short of astounding....

There are plenty of reasons to investigate how much consumers spend on their pets’ veterinary care. My favorite reason? To determine whether pets' needs are being adequately met.

A study published in the recent JAVMA (Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association) suggests that the divide between the haves and have-nots in the world of pets is yawning ever wider.

In a paper titled,...

Hot on the heels of our recent discussions on pet health insurance comes this post on the question of non-traditional pet insurance. It seems Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI), the company boasting the largest share of this still small, but growing market, is raising the stakes and reaching out to owners of companion animals outside the dog-cat norm.

How about pet goose insurance, as for Boswell...

Going over my expenses today, searching frantically for something worthy of the axe, I reached my blogging expenses and looked extra-carefully for something to cut out—but I knew I wouldn’t find much there.

Sick to death of the bugs you, my die-hard readers, know too well, I just recently blew a wad on Dolittler’s rewrite. Gone, soon, will be the unmanageable, Cold Fusion core of the site. In...

She’s not just the quintessentially cute media darling of quick home-cooked fare. She’s a pit bull’s mama, too. And pit bulls couldn’t have a more family-friendly frontman than Rachael Ray—or her sweet-faced pitty Isaboo, for that matter. Someone’s got to steer the world away from the gangsta stereotype pit bulls suffer under. Might as well be the current queen of the American meal.

Martha...