OK, so this post isn’t all about vegetable feeding or a feline vegetarian diets (which I’m not big on). If you’ve Googled up this entry in error, however, please consider reading it anyway.

Everyone always asks me how they can get their cats to lose weight. As someone who’s never had the pleasure of living with a fat cat (all my cats have been skinny Abyssinians adopted from the University of...

Sense a theme on Dolittler lately? It seems I just can’t keep myself from addressing the most obvious killer problem in our midst: pet obesity. 

But how do you know if a pet’s fat? And just how fat denotes obesity? These are just a couple of problems I face in my daily life as someone who advocates for the best care of my individual patients.

Take the 158-pound Labrador retriever I’ve been...

Broken bones happen every day. Whether it’s a toe, tibia or rib, injuries like this are among veterinary medicine’s most typical traumas. 

That’s why Veterinary Pet Insurance has decided to put its database of pet health claims to good use by cataloging the most common reasons pets break their bones. Sourced from 5,000 claims from 2008, here’s the skinny: 

#1 The “HBC”: Not surprisingly,...

Someone’s been killing cats in Miami. But it’s not the kind of shelter-style slaughter, tainted kibble death or antifreeze poisoning our culture’s grown so jaded to. No, this time it’s a bona-fide serial killer out for blood, skin, relics and pain. 

Please discontinue reading this RIGHT NOW if you can’t stand the thought of a post on how a classically psychopathic individual develops a taste...

Ever flown with creatures in tow? Did you stress over the cargo hold’s temp, scheduling evening flights only? Or were you lucky enough to bring him aboard, “under the seat in front of you”? Did you have to brave the dirty looks from the middle-seater? Endure vet visits for inter-state transport health certificates? Submit to an extra $100 to $275 for her “ticket”?

So you know, it’s not easy...

Let’s say you’re at the shelter picking out a new cat or kitten. Your heart is set on this little tabby female so you pay your adoption fee and make your way home, content in the knowledge that Misty’s been spayed, dewormed and vaccinated––as healthy as can be, right?

A year later, you take Misty in to see the veterinarian. Must be time for shots, you think. Here’s when your veterinarian...

So you want to eat meat? I do. For a lot of reasons. Yet aside from a few spear-fishing trips, I’ve never killed my own dinner. 

Like the vast majority of you, I’ve been content to order meat at a restaurant and purchase my slaughtered and dressed beasts at the market––until recently, that is. 

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been slowly but steadily gravitating towards a lower animal...

Ms. Winehouse is not alone. No one wants to go to rehab when they could be snoring blissfully between 400 thread count sheets, but even dogs and cats need a little butt-kicking rehabilitation every now and then––even if means dispensing with the comfort of your bed. 

You’ve doubtless heard of the fancy underwater treadmills and cool techniques used to bring dogs back to life after stressful...

Are you counting calories for your pets yet? If she’s overweight, you probably should. Once you do, you’ll come to realize that nowhere are those calories more insidiously hidden than in your pet’s commercial treats. 

According to most veterinary nutritionists, pet treats should make up less than a tenth of your pet’s diet. Now, that’s not meant to grant you license to start feeding treats if...

Perhaps it’s time I addressed this issue (again!), since so many of you are experiencing the same kind of storms I’ve been trying hard to sleep through for the past couple of nights:

Yes, it’s thunderstorm season. Yes, it’s great for your garden. And yes, it sucks for your thunderstorm-phobic dog. 

She may take flight to the closet, bathtub or bed. He may quake and quiver by your feet. She...

Here’s my idea, one via which I turn my own personal lemons into everyone’s lemonade: 

It’s the SophieCam, a video spot on Dolittler where anyone can watch my Sophie Sue sleep, eat, get petted, and be generally adored while she’s with us at our hospital. This cancer survivor, like so many out there, deserves the attention. And so does the cancer that afflicts so many of our pets. 

Here’s...

Got a pet who’s conditioned you to believe that his loving presence is worth all his foul odors? If your pet smells nasty then you probably know exactly what I’m talking about (though some of you may be in denial). Everyone else thinks he stinks and stays away. But you? You love him, aroma and all. 

Nonetheless, there is something you can do about her chronic malodor, especially if she falls...

Are you on Twitter? If so, is it just another form of blog addiction?...or is it that it’s easier than Facebook when it comes to keeping in touch with your peeps? Perhaps it’s the hip factor. I mean, everyone’s tweeting, right? 

It’s been a couple of months now since I surrendered to the sweet mysteries of Twitter. I’ve been tweeting at least a couple of times every day and spending valuable...

No, I didn’t suddenly grow a pair overnight. But I do have plenty of first-hand experience on this issue. Though women serve as the primary caretakers when it comes to pets’ veterinary needs (in the US, about 3 to 1 over men), a surprising percentage of my own clients come from the testosterone-rich crowd among us. 

These Miami men are usually educated and polite Hispanic males, but I get all...

Is your veterinarian’s place a cat-friendly environment? Is the waiting room divided so that dogs live on one side while cats rest more comfortably on the other? Does the staff seem to recognize when your cats are unduly stressed? What other concessions do they make by way of making your kitty’s visit as kind and gentle as possible?

Before I embark on this topic, let me first come clean:...

Have you ever known a somnambulist? You know, a “sleepwalker”? If so, you’ll know this disorder, though usually benign, can sometimes lead them into odd situations where they do things like raid the fridge, drive the car or climb on the roof. 

How about this one: Have you ever been sufficiently startled (out of a deep sleep or otherwise) that you reflexively defended yourself? 

Something...

Think you’ve got the perfect training method? Think you know the best way to control your dog? You may have reached behavioral nirvana with your approach, but that doesn’t always mean you’ve done what’s best for your dog’s health in the process.

Consider that, in a perfect world, your young, healthy dog will receive training instruction at the end of a leash. In most cases that leash attaches...

You’ve always sympathized with the plight of shelter pets. In fact, you often campaign on their behalf. You may even volunteer to care for them. But, if you’re like most American pet owners, your pets didn’t come from shelters or rescues. You either paid for them or found some other way to acquire them (a gift, perhaps? a wandering stray kitten? a backyard mis-mating placement?). Shelters,...

After a professional query, someone sent me a message yesterday that got me thinking about how I handle my chronic arthritis patients. According to this doc, one of my most trusted sources in clinical pharmacology:

“YOU DON’T NEED NSAIDS TO TREAT OSTEOARTHITIS...FYI: NSAIDS kill more dogs and cats that any single drug.”

In screaming caps, he effectively berated me for my tendency to use...

I’m going out on a limb here because I’m not sure how much you guys really care about inside-the-veterinary-profession issues, but I thought it’d be interesting to run this past you all, anyway.

Imagine the nation’s number-one association for doctors, the American Medical Association (AMA), is choosing one particular health insurance carrier for its membership’s benefits package. Its...

I have a great gift idea for someone who wants to make their favorite veterinarian very happy. Find them a ginormous, computerized, veterinary drug interaction program. Best yet, make it one that can fit both in the palm of her hand (ideally on her iPhone) and tie into her office’s computerized invoicing function. 

Anything to keep her from making mistakes. Please. Something to make it easy...

I’ve never been comfortable with this situation (and who would be?):

A client walks in with a pet you haven’t seen in three years. His coat is a carpet of fleas. He’s lost half his body weight. His teeth are rotting out of his skull. The client confesses the pet’s been sick for three months, “but he only just got really bad this week and my wife doesn’t want to pay any money if you can’t...

The pet microchip industry is getting a boost from the pet owning public’s increased interest in keeping their pets close. Nonetheless, it’s the opinion of this veterinarian that the industry––and the product itself––is suffering serious growing pains as the pet owning market’s demand matures beyond what the current, lowly microchip can reasonably supply. 

For microchips to do what their...

Microchipping pets is a pretty simple process. A loaded syringe, a quick flick of the wrist...and voilá: A microchip bearing a series of digits has been “installed.”

It’s standard practice for microchips to make it inside your pet. Shelters do it. Pet shops are required to do it. And in some areas, breeders have to do it, too. Add to that population the growing percentage of pet owners who...

Turns out this topic is gathering some steam here on Dolittler––as it is in veterinary minds across the spectrum of companion animal medicine. That’s why this topic requires a two-post treatment to properly address. 

Though blood work is an increasingly common component of every pet’s medical care, not every veterinarian will draw your pet’s blood automatically. That’s why you need to...

“You want $99 to test his blood before his dentistry? Seriously? I’m thinking maybe we’ll skip the whole dental thing. The anesthesia freaks me out, anyway.”

That’s not usually how it goes where I work. Clients tend to be more polite, at least. But dentistry is one of those wellness services that suffers in a slumping economy. At our place, it’s clear that, despite their respectful...

How much is your pet worth to you? Should he die, be lost or stolen, what does his untimely departure really cost you?

The Miami Herald reports today that a judge in Broward County, Florida (next door to me) has just awarded an owner $30,000 for the loss of her Rottweiler after a kennel failed to seek appropriate medical attention for the respiratory condition that afflicted him and her other...