Betsy the Border Collie knows more than 300 words. Sure, she’s no Alex-the-African Grey. She won’t be speaking them anytime soon. But she knows them. She can act on them. And she understands them in different contexts, displaying a knack for abstract thinking we’d never before thought possible in animals—not to mention dogs.

So goes National Geographic's March 2008 cover story. It details the...

Part of the fun of being aboard a huge ship with a crew of your colleagues (as I was last week) is the inevitability of meeting someone whose interests and ambitions intersect with your own.

Among my new cohorts was a dual-boarded veterinary specialist in internal medicine and veterinary critical care (talk about an over-achiever!).

Though I’m not fit to lick her shoes—especially when it comes...

(Until I can post again on my own two legs, here's a substitute post as timeless as tastelessness...)

I’m on a roll with the whole castration issue lately. It must be the stress. But here’s a pet peeve worthy of discussion. Well…maybe not, but here goes anyway.

Have you seen those big macho trucks on the road? The ones with oversized tires, Playboy-stenciled mud-flaps and perhaps a windshield...

Yeah, it’s true. Most people have a built-in fear of bugs. For some unlucky souls, however, the fear is far greater than what most of us would consider rational. A significant percentage of the population is afflicted with this problem. Indeed, it’s common enough for the psychiatric community to have come up with a medical term for it: “delusional parasitosis.”

Yesterday’s post on bedbugs...

OK, so it’s live now, not really Beta at all (I’m not even sure what that means, really). Nonetheless, I’m all nervous about Dolittler’s newest incarnation. Will you like it? Will it work?

Just so you know, Dolittler 2.0 will be arriving in stages over the next few weeks (including new visuals), so if you didn’t get everything you asked for don’t worry, it’s probably on its way.

And you’ll...

I must be crazy. I’ve fielded an offer to apply for a [very] part-time position at my local Animal Services shelter. I completed the paperwork for my app just before posting this and I’m now waiting for Miami-Dade County approval on my license and other basic pre-employment necessities.

I’m not completely sure what makes most vets take on the more stressful, lower-paying positions most...

No, it's not a foray into a bad joke. It's my life at the moment.

I'm on my signifiicant others' tenth-year vet school reuniuon cruise to Belize and Cozumel. It's the first time I've been out of the country in twelve years...and I'm loving every minute--except for the hours I've spent worrying about how I'd ever manage to post my blog entries.

Shortly after embarking, I was informed that...

Have you heard? Paris is under investigation by the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services for a pet violation. No, it’s not over Tinkerbell’s new skinny jeans and their circulation-constricting potential.

Nope. It’s the result of her seventeen(!) dogs—a no-no in LA where three is the max.

When asked how she’d managed to amass so many, the heiress-cum-starlet replied, “They keep having...

Of course it’s the digital age, so why shouldn’t we expect our pets to get high-tech tagged along with their microchips? I like the concept, even if it’s just because it raises the profile of pet tagging.

To me it makes little difference to me what kind of tag you use—just use something to prove your pet is owned and loved should she escape her confines or run amok after a storm. If it takes a...

Not that you would ever want one (nor could you afford one, most likely), but a research group out of Korea has “built” a glow-in-the-dark cat.

Now, you may think this in the same vein as the allergen-free cats that came out of Texas a few years ago—but you’d be wrong. These cats are not for sale to the fickle US populace looking for new and exciting dinner party conversation. They’re part of...