(As you may well have noticed, my posting has become far less frequent than my typical. For that I heartily apologize--it seems that blogging does not work well on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (just letting you know should you ever try it). I have been unable to upload my posts due to poor connection (the connection times out before I'm able to upload) and my trusty Mac is not supported.

So I guess it’s time to finally cough up the goods on the subject of pet health insurance. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to table your patience. The subject had gotten so big, broad and unwieldy that I’ll not have time to cover it in one single post. Over the next week, however, I’ll cover it all—or rather, I’ll attempt to.

I’m planning to bring it to you in several installments. The...

OK, so now you’ve got your diagnosis: It’s a cruciate ligament tear or rupture with possible injury to the meniscal cartilage of the knee, too. Ouch! What you really need right about now is an expert opinion on the optimal treatment for this injury given your budget (OK, so maybe you need a tissue, too). To that end, here’s the skinny I promised…

Common cruciate options

1-Surgery (one of the...

Ah, the dreaded cruciate ligament rupture… It’s often a dog owner’s most expensive nightmare. Commonly referred to as an ACL injury in human sports medicine, we vet types are more likely to call this knee condition an RCCL (rupture of the cranial cruciate ligament) when we’re speaking in sciencese, or a “cruciate” for short.

This post is the second in a series discussing what vet medicine...

Let’s say your pet’s been off her food for a few days. X-rays, labwork and physical examination have been less than completely rewarding. Still, everything points to something amiss with her liver. Ten or twenty years ago we would’ve jumped right into her abdomen to take a look-see. In today’s world? We’d order an ultrasound.

Ultrasound is a means of seeing what lies beneath the surface by...

What a question! I’ll bet you didn’t know that we vets think as long and hard about our prices as you do when confronted with an estimate for your pet’s care. How much should we charge for an ear hematoma, unblocking a cat, a dental cleaning, a bloat?

It’s not easy to figure it all out. But I reckon it’s even tougher on your side. We know exactly how much it costs us to bring you our...