There is an etiquette to every practice under the sun. Whether you’re a lounging lizard intent on staying alive through breeding season or a dog entering ground zero in a puppy park, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it. So, too, should you consider your approach to switching veterinarians.

You’ve been with your vet for years, but sometimes you get the feeling your pet may...

I have family that just moved out to the San Francisco Bay Area. Attached to their dogs as they are, they’d begun stressing about finding the right vet right long before they’d pulled up roots in New York City. So of course, they asked me to hook them up.

Contrary to popular opinion, we veterinarians don’t have an automatic function that allows us to know who the good vets are in any given...

Ever wondered what it means when you contemplate the purchase of pet foods labeled “human grade”? 

I’ve always thought it a murky designation given the FDA’s lax regulation of pet food. When even our human supermarket fare gives off mixed signals on the labeling of everything from “green” and “organic” to “heart healthy” and “lower fat,” can you blame me for my yellow-eyed perplexity?

I...

“Speaking truth to power” is a great topic for a post penned in the hours between Martin Luther King Jr.’s 80th birthday celebration and the inauguration of our first African-American president…even if this is only a pet health blog.

His continued pursuit of this theme, expertly pioneered in the civil rights arena by MLK, is my primary wish for Mr. Obama’s presidency. We can only hope that...

I’ve done the math. 21% of my clients opted to have their pets “privately” cremated in 2008. In 2003, only five years earlier, it was only 15%. It’s clear the demand for this service is on the rise.

In case you’re wondering what this kind of death service entails, “private” cremation means the pet’s corporeal remains are shipped to our local crematorium, placed on a tray. then individually...

Welcome to the first Dolittler post of 2009! Along with all the other resolutions I hope to keep, Dolittler improvement is on the list. But it’s not the pesky paragraph breaks and registration issues (though I promise I’ll get to those, too), it’s a bigger picture improvement you’ll get via its content.

As they say in the blogosphere, “content is king.” In other words, making Dolittler better...

It was an unseasonably warm and drizzly Christmas morning in Miami. With no chimney to speak of, this household had hung its stockings on the window cranks with care. And no long-winter’s nap for me night before last. Just a fitful five hours that took me back to childhood Christmas Eves when sleep was not the luxury it is today.

This time, however, it wasn’t the excitement of staying up late...

It’s time for the inevitable: shopping! Because I refuse to frequent traditional retail establishments during Thanksgiving and New Year’s (for years now), I always either shop online or make my own gifts. (The supermarket and the craft store are as far as I’ll get to a mall.)

This year I’m treating my family, friends and staff to my used books (they always appreciate this, despite their...

In vet school we were required to participate in the large animal field service as a requirement for graduation. Lots of it was bumping around at full-tilt over rural Pennsylvania hills and dales in a huge old Chevy crusted in compartments and hatches for our equipment’s safekeeping.

Were it not for the cell phones and artificial insemination discussions that accompanied our trips, you might...

There’s something new happening in the world of veterinary medicine and this time I think I’ve got my finger on its pulse. Over the past month I’ve received several emails from veterinarians and animal health groups and—get this—they want to blog.

Cool, right?

As of this month, Dolittler’s been officially blogging for three years. My first post, which I’ll always recall as fondly as I do...