It’s summertime and that means flying bugs. Unless you live in the most arid climate imaginable...you’ve got ‘em too. 

The bites and their bumps are disturbing enough, but we all know that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The real predators to fear are usually not the insects themselves...but the even smaller bugs they carry with them. The West Niles and the heartworms of this world are far...

“Irregularity” is a politely inadequate euphemism for what you know as diarrhea, constipation and flatulence. In all cases, these symptoms are accompanied by changes in the animal’s gastrointestinal bacteria. That’s why “probiotics” are often recommended for these pets by way of boosting “good” gut bacteria and counteracting the bad. 

But what are these probiotics anyway? And how do they...

Cats who live where mosquitoes do, whether they live indoors or out, should [ideally] receive heartworm preventatives. That’s the premise of this post and I hope you’ll all take it to heart. 

While it’s true that cats are not the ideal host for heartworms (Dirofilaria immitis), they can become infected by heartworm carrying mosquitoes, nonetheless (as can humans, though usually only...

Got an itchy pet? Losing hair? Diagnosed with “allergies” or “allergic skin disease”? Are the summer months causing your pet especial distress? Then you’ve likely been offered “allergy testing.” But what, exactly, does that mean? 

For starters, it means we rule out all other potential causes of skin disease to make sure we’re not all hung up on the allergy thing for no good reason. This...

Everyone thinks it always comes down to the heat stroke nightmare scenario. But it doesn’t––not always. Hot weather hazards are seriously diverse. And here’s a listing of what you need to look out for––beyond the heat stroke, which all of you should avoid like the plague, anyway:

1-Burnt pads

My burnt pad patients almost invariably come attached to owners who profess ignorance of this...

It’s easy to forget that antibiotics have been formally in use for less than a hundred years. I mean, what did we ever do without these bacteria-killing drugs? 

I prescribe antibiotics every day of my life in veterinary practice. Which means I revere them for their effectiveness and rely on their actions. Indeed, I treat them like gold. (Gram per gram, some of them probably cost as...

In veterinary school we’re relentlessly dogged by biology, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, pathology, embryology and genetics. And that’s just the first one or two years. In the second and third years we’re exposed to seemingly endless coursework in ethics and nutrition and principles of medicine and surgery, among others. Then after all this butt-numbing classroom work, we’re typically...

...and it’s for the ubiquitous mast cell tumor. Seen primarily in dogs, this common skin tumor has plagued us veterinarians for eons, it seems. Not only can it be a killer, it’s sometimes hard to identify when it masks itself, chameleon-like, as a wart or tiny bump on the skin. (Who can see with all that hair?)

To add insult to injury, it’s exceedingly difficult to arrive at a decision as to...

OK, so this post isn’t all about vegetable feeding or a feline vegetarian diets (which I’m not big on). If you’ve Googled up this entry in error, however, please consider reading it anyway.

Everyone always asks me how they can get their cats to lose weight. As someone who’s never had the pleasure of living with a fat cat (all my cats have been skinny Abyssinians adopted from the University of...

Ms. Winehouse is not alone. No one wants to go to rehab when they could be snoring blissfully between 400 thread count sheets, but even dogs and cats need a little butt-kicking rehabilitation every now and then––even if means dispensing with the comfort of your bed. 

You’ve doubtless heard of the fancy underwater treadmills and cool techniques used to bring dogs back to life after stressful...