Yesterday was a rough one. I euthanized three cats (due to FeLV, FIV and a case of complicated diabetes). That’s more than usual. Though all were tearful, morale-crushing events, the last of these held out a silver lining for us to marvel at long after the end of this depressing day.

Meesy was a beautiful, undemanding, even-tempered Siamese girl only a decade old. She’d been losing weight over...

For those of you following the series of posts on Helen, I’m sure you’ll be shocked and dismayed to hear that she was taken from us this week after suffering a morning of uncontrollable seizures. It was a tragic ending for all of us who loved this presumed head trauma survivor—not least because it was so unexpected.

In fact, the day before we euthanized her, Helen was more active than usual....

It’s true. We’re suckers for service dogs of all stripes. Last weekend at the North American Vet Conference I fell in love with about five of them as they lounged out at the booths of their sponsor organizations or drug companies.

Yes, drug companies actually sponsor these service animals and their organizations by giving them free drugs and sometimes large cash infusions, usually asking only...

This client had been calling me monthly for the last three or four months, trying desperately to place the Soft-Coated Wheaton he’d saved from the side of the road in suburban Miami just last year.

When they found him he was about a year old, skinny, matted and unneutered. No microchip. No tag. Newspaper announcements and fliers went unanswered or unnoticed.

Then the kids fell in love with...

Remember my young Golden Retriever pup of last Christmas week’s posts? I hadn’t wanted to depress you horribly on your holiday and therefore refrained from reporting her euthanasia on Christmas Eve. She was succumbing to sepsis, the full-body infection I’d described to be her primary problem. She was suffering. Her chances were miniscule, at best. It was time.

In the hours leading up to her...

I’ve always felt that with a little perseverance, intelligence and a hefty dose of excellent PR one could sell almost anything. So far, however, I have one case study on this principle that seems hell bent on discouraging my continued faith in its universality. Her name is Helen.

I’ve put the news out on the Dolittler wire. I lobbied hard to get The Miami Herald to include this deaf and blind,...

It’s 9 AM. It’s the day before Christmas Eve and I’m at my cousin’s house in the Florida Keys again. It’s been a week of serious compassion fatigue so I think I can justify a little R and R before the melee that accompanies Christmastime at ground zero in my family.

I’ll be driving back soon while the rest of the entourage takes the boat out for the day. But I’m not depressed over my early...

Yesterday one of my clients came in with her two year-old Yorkie. The dog had spent the last four weeks and the lion’s share of ten thousand dollars in and out of multiple specialty hospitals.

After coming down with granulomatous meningoencephalitis (GME) the day before Thanksgiving, she’d failed to recover measurably. She could not stand. She could not see. She couldn’t even lay down without...

First thing on Wednesday morning I was treated to a waiting room scene no vet with a steaming hot, vente-sized latte in her hand ever wants to see: blood, tears, and a painful poodle with puncture wounds. So much for the $5 coffee…

This poor ten year-old poodle obviously needed a look-see and some pain meds ASAP. She’d been attacked by a neighbor’s dog just as she’d set out for her morning...

I must be a blind kitten magnet. Remember the one from the Starbuck’s parking lot? If that one was pathetic, this one’s a travesty.

This little five month-old was found in one of my clients’ back yards. The black and white female was discovered hunched over and staring at the ground, pitifully reminiscent of a target…for three big dogs (who were almost unleashed in her direction before it was...