I offer you this open letter to the lawmakers of Massachusetts now that this state has been recently targeted by the pet rental service FlexPetz. FlexPetz is a now-national chain providing pet rental services to those who would enjoy a pet but are unable or unwilling to make a firm commitment to one.

I’ve written about this issue before, which is why I was approached by a Massachusetts reader...

Ahem. Yes, size matters. Predictably, surgeons who like to make long incisions in the surgical theater think it’s a better measure of their thoroughness. Meanwhile, surgeons preferring short ones believe their way is less painful and less fraught with incision-site complications.

To my, mind, it’s a general question of style, neither one better than the other, both of which have their place in...

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...

Hallmark/Westland is a large-scale California beef producer. Factory farming at its finest, I’d venture to guess. In case you hadn’t heard, this manufacturer has downed the industry—for now—by provoking a massive beef recall.

143 million pounds! It makes me want to cry. How many creatures were killed after it was shown this operation engaged in the illegal addition of “downer cows” to their...

I have loads of really caring clients who seek to become the best animal parents they can. Unfortunately, too many have recently gone the way of the Internet breeder when sourcing their canine soulmate of the next ten to fifteen years.

Dr. Khuly, can you please recommend a good Puggle breeder?

What am I supposed to say when faced with that kind of question? Oh sure, I have a great one for you...

Rifling through the fridge on Monday morning I found a full pack of gum that I‘m sure I never purchased. It was Trident’s cinnamon flavor—and it boasted brightly-colored letters on the label which read: “With Xylitol!”

How the heck this product got into a household with dogs is pretty obvious: The same household had hosted a birthday party for a pack of wild ten year-old children on the...

I don’t know about you but I have a bone to pick with the issue of online dog training. A dog trainer and former vet tech, Julie Bjelland Lokhandwala, is now offering live consults through her website, WebDogtrainer.com.  It seems she’s found her niche for expanding the scope of her business via the Internet in ways most of us never thought possible—perhaps because it’s not.

To me, dog...

I was struck by the comments that attended a recent post on speed-demon feline neutering (I’m going for the gold! Fifty-six cat neuters in ten hours? I can beat that!). While significant umbrage was understandably taken over the concept of surgery as sport, this is one area where the veterinary point of view varies vastly from that of the average animal lover.

Interestingly, all the vets I...

“Which philosophy about animals most closely aligns with your own?”

This question was posed by DVM Newsmagazine, a vet industry news publication. The undisclosed number of veterinarians responding offered the following basic breakdown in views:

Animal Welfare: 78.1%

Animal Rights: 2.4%

Other: 12.7%

No response: 1.8%

Though I have no idea how many vets responded and to what degree statistical...

Imagine you were willing to pay anything to find the best Lab puppy money could buy. Let’s say you’re not inculcated into the proper ways of going about this. Let’s also assume your children are begging you to get one online based on their own Google searches.

Finally you cave and send for the cutest pup in the litter based on a short video showing how vigorous, healthy and well cared for these...