Q: What’s worse than having to force your pet to wear an Elizabethan collar?

A: Your vet’s having to rely on your commitment to the E-collar for the success of his/her patient’s condition.

That’s why vets often like to offer no-excuse regimens via mandatory E-collar to help keep pets away from the site of contention.

But there are owners who downright refuse to place a lampshade collar around...

Got an aging pet on your hands? If you don’t you may well soon, so pay attention:

From the files of “I-believe-it-because-my-behaviorist-told-me-so” comes a new approach to treating cognitive dysfunction in aging pets.

“Cognitive dysfunction”—as in, sometimes disoriented, occasionally confused, often engaging in repetitive behavior such as circling and pacing, exhibiting altered sleep/wake...

No, vaccinating a pet while ill is not recommended. And yet I hear tell of this practice constantly. As in, “Yeah, my pet just went to the vet and she was treated for X, Y and Z. Oh, and, by the way, I also made sure she got her shots at the same time.”

Even some of my own clients, who’d I’d never make out for two-for-one types, often ask me to vaccinate their pets, “as long as they’re here.”...

Here’s a story on how listening to the radio can improve your veterinary knowledge.

Last week I was listening to Dr. Nicholas Dodman (Tufts veterinary behaviorist and vet personality extraordinaire) on NPR. He was letting us all know how critical behavior is to the success of the human-animal bond.

And we all know that.

But did you also know that higher protein foods may be associated with...

A journalist-acquaintance recently accosted me with an unwelcome conversation on the merits of my sideline writing. “And yet,” she lamented, “how unfortunate that your topic of choice isn’t more juicy—marketable, you know?”

“But then again,” she pressed on, “how sweet to tell such wonderful stories (not a one she’s ever read, I’m sure). It must make it easier for you to sleep at night.”

After...

It’s perhaps one of the ugliest tumors we see, a knobbly blackish gray multilobulated lump that looks something like the fungal outcroppings your neglected refrigerated foods might suffer. When melanoma masses get to breaking and bleeding they’re even less likely to compete against Miss Venezuela for the coveted sash and crown.

Last week I cut one of these bloody suckers out of a...

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center a group of twenty-seven dogs braved the hazards of the world’s biggest pile of toxic rubble for a collective total of just over 15,000 hours.

Though other dogs sporadically joined them in their labors, these 27 were monitored as part of a collaborative study undertaken by the Animal Medical Center in New York. Their acute...

Twice in the past half-year we’ve been treated to research that challenges the last few decades’ conventional wisdom on the subject of spaying and neutering dogs. This time it’s all about knees and hips—and it’s a good study.

Sure, this JAVMA study (from last week's edition, not yet online) has its population bias issues and leaves open the question on ideal timing for sterilization (crucial,...

Dogs are capable of making a scary sound that often provokes midnight emergency vet visits among novice dog owners. In case you’ve never heard it, it sounds like a repetitive snort, sneeze, gag, honk, cough kind of a thing that usually lasts just a few seconds (though it may seem to last forever in some cases).

We in-the-know folks call this a “reverse sneeze.”

Though the term is arguably way...

OMG! Is there nothing worse than an ear hematoma? I currently have three patients recovering from recent bouts of the bulbous earflap phenomenon knows as the “aural hematoma.” 

In these cases what happens is that the space between the cartilage of the ear and its overlying skin separates to accommodate the blood of a nearby ruptured vessel. In some pets it looks like a big bleb on the ear’s...