Were you one of the recipients of PETA’s email missive on the subject of Eight Belles? Here’s my receipt from the “PETA Action Center:”

Dear Patty:

As I am sure you have heard, after crossing the finish line in last Saturday's Kentucky Derby, a young filly named Eight Belles collapsed when both her front ankles snapped. She was euthanized in the dirt where she lay, the latest victim of the dirty...

Last week I posted on the cost of spays and neuters in veterinary practice. In the comments below the post, it became clear that concern for the risks the procedures entail, particularly for the intra-abdominal spay, run high among you.

No matter what we veterinarians may say to calm your fears it’s true. Every surgical procedure has its risks. And while a spay is a surgery we may perform...

I’ll confess to having reacted viscerally to the news of Eight Belle’s euthanasia after her second-place performance in yesterday’s Kentucky Derby. Last night’s late post found me at a loss for words to express the confusing emotions I’d experienced after my boyfriend’s “I have bad news” phone call reached me in advance of a few others.

Nonetheless, I’ll not rescind my call to boycott the...

Is it possible? Might Baxter’s poisoned heparin trickle down to pets? Why not? And how would we ever know?

In case you haven’t been made ware of the problem through your media sources, here’s a wrap-up: Tainted heparin, a  blood-thinning medication, was manufactured by drug company Baxter after using ingredients sourced from—you guessed it—China.

As far as I know, no one’s tried to send me an...

Fifty-five years ago the now-ubiquitous double-helixed DNA molecule made its debut on the world stage. In 2003, a group of US scientists and educators declared April 25th National DNA Day by way of commemorating Watson and Crick’s discovery of the molecule and simultaneously uncorking the champagne after the success of the Human Genome Project.

We who love our pets and follow science should...

OK so it’s a silly post title. But it’s true. I can’t stand those smarmy Teletubbies. That’s why their UK compatriots at TeleVets beat ‘em hands down. It's not just the smarm factor, though. I'm also gratified to see someone outside the US get into the veterinary website biz on a bigger scale than…well…a lowly blog's.

Founded by two upstart British veterinarians looking to leverage their...

I don’t know how it is where you live but in my county in Florida (Miami-Dade), licensing your dog is a bureaucratic nightmare that makes my work far more stressful than it has to be. Here's their policy.

In the wake of annual licensing hassles my staff and I have been treated to a number of time-sucking, blood pressure-boosting stressors we could have lived without, courtesy of our incensed...

Increasingly, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) is taking stands on animal welfare issues and I, for one, am gratified to see our professional organization acting in ways I believe are consistent with our larger mission as animal health professionals.

But safeguarding animal health and welfare doesn’t stop with household pets like dogs and cats, of course. One area in which...

Guillermo Habacuc Vargas. That’s the name of the Costa Rican artist whose work you may have heard talk of for its incredible depiction of a dying dog in a gallery setting—and for the allegedly posthumous photographs of the stray dog (Natividad) that also became part of the work.

If you’re one of the two million-plus people who has signed a petition to limit this artist’s inclusion in the...

Inexplicably, YouTube generation military personnel just can’t seem to get it right. Why’s it so hard to understand that what makes it onto film has a way of staying there? As the Abu Ghraib defendants learned the hard way, it also has a way of coming back to haunt you.

What now? Footage of a puppy being launched off a cliff into the desert by Marines in Iraq has made the rounds on YouTube. It...