Were you ever faced with the sad reality of multiple extractions for your pet’s less-than-perfect teeth? I deal in this kind of dental crisis on a weekly basis. And nine out of ten times the conversation goes the same way:

“But how is she going to eat?”

Newsflash: If she’s eating “just fine” now, it’s probably because she’s not using her teeth anyway. I mean, have you ever really looked in...

“I don’t know how many times I have to say it: It was wrong...I didn’t step up. I wasn’t a leader.”

If I had my druthers, you’d never stop saying it. Your hell would be akin to Tantalus’s: a $130 million contract dangles above your head while the snarling pits you killed lick at your heels for eternity.

As it is, you got off easy. And you don’t seem to get that, given your impatience with...

It’s been two months and I’m still catching heat over my scraggly stray’s name choice.

After this puppymill Pug arrived, amid a flurry of demodectic mange and fleas, my son had promptly christened him “Billy.” In the way only an eleven year-old who sees no evil growing on skin can do, he took one look and uttered the two mundane syllables.

But they didn’t stick. Between the deformed limbs,...

Cat vs. bird. It’s a Dolittler theme for sure. But there’s always something unsettling about the emotional discussion that inevitably ensues whenever the problem of free-roaming cats killing birds gets raised. It's something I can only describe as “stressful” on the TNR (trap-neuter-release) and environmental front.

I’ve always had cause to ponder the dilemma more intimately than most. That’s...

Last week’s “Man Vs. Mutt” article in the Wall Street Journal’s weekend section traded on a concept that’s been dominating the news and––albeit obliquely––Dolittler’s headlines, too. Yes, we’re talking healthcare reform again. At the risk of bashing this concept into submission, I’ll admit that “I’m on a roll”––or is it merely a barely opaque display of my obsessive tendencies? 

Either way,...

In recent history, few viruses have led to the widespread fear that attends the H1N1 epidemic.

HIV? It’s not fast-moving enough and the can’t-hit-me-ism that attends it makes it not-so-scary to “common folk.” Ebola? Puh-lease. It may be gruesome but that’s one for Africans, we conjecture. But the swine flu? Nasty stuff. And it targets wholesome pregnant women, to boot. It’s a definite...

Smoking is every bit as dangerous for pets as it is for you. This we know. It’s possible they’re even more at risk than you and me. This we suspect.

Patients with asthma and chronic bronchitis are the tip of the pulmonary iceberg in households where smoking happens indoors. Lung cancer (and maybe other kinds of the cancerous greeblies) are also possible.

The tip-off for me? A pet that smells...

We all know cash is king. So here’s a new one on that front: Amidst all the congressional wranglings on the subject of human healthcare comes the news that pets might catch a novel break.

No, it’s not about a new program to underwrite Maddie’s Fund or finance some other government-organized spay and neuter initiative. Forget the indirect approach. This time it’s about tax breaks for you and...

Everyone knows fleas suck. But is your vet doing everything he or she can to inform you of the dangers of parasitic infections to your pets and other household inhabitants? Maybe. Maybe not.

Though diseases spread by fleas are relatively uncommon in the US’s people population, they’re out there. The spread of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes Plague happens via fleas that jump from...

When veterinarians need to blow off some steam, they sometimes post comments to the Veterinary Information Network’s numerous veterinarian-only threads. In some cases, they even pen letters they wish they could have written...to their misbehaving clients.

Here’s one I’ve written to help elucidate the themes in evidence on a “Dear Client” thread on VIN:

Dear Client: Thank you for making the...