I have a great gift idea for someone who wants to make their favorite veterinarian very happy. Find them a ginormous, computerized, veterinary drug interaction program. Best yet, make it one that can fit both in the palm of her hand (ideally on her iPhone) and tie into her office’s computerized invoicing function. 

Anything to keep her from making mistakes. Please. Something to make it easy...

I’ve never been comfortable with this situation (and who would be?):

A client walks in with a pet you haven’t seen in three years. His coat is a carpet of fleas. He’s lost half his body weight. His teeth are rotting out of his skull. The client confesses the pet’s been sick for three months, “but he only just got really bad this week and my wife doesn’t want to pay any money if you can’t...

After reading your comments from yesterday’s post on the cost of routine dentistry, I got to thinking: Do we humans often treat our pets better than we treat ourselves?

Don’t bother answering; I know the truth. Most serious pet people are too willing to put off their on medical issues in favor of their pets.’ 

Since I’m a veterinarian who makes her living from making sure her patients get...

Sometimes things in veterinary medicine have a way of going wrong...very wrong. Want a sampling of human errors and stupid veterinarian tricks? Here’s a bunch for your amusement:

1-The blood bath

Ever seen your vet do this one? Take a large syringe designed to sample a full twelve cc’s of blood. After you’re almost done, pull just a little harder on the plunger...

Ever wonder how a group of veterinarians arrives at a conclusion? Stressfully. 

Long story short: We had this argument. About fifteen of us went back and forth on the merits of a free spay/neuter event sponsored by a South Florida veterinary group, for which I serve as an officer.

We’d already done one event. (Here’s the post on its success.) Now we were talking about doing it four times...

OK so here’s where I confess: I don’t like to trim toenails––nor do I relish delegating claw detail to my staff. And no, it’s not because we’ve got better things to do and can’t be bothered with the lowly pedicure. It’s more that I can’t stand the stress of the event. 

The problem: By and large, my canine patients hate having their claws clipped. Though a few of my owners have trained their...

A recent study of veterinarians came to an obvious conclusion: Vets should not practice medicine on themselves. Not only is practicing medicine outside the scope of our licensed-to-do duties a not-so-effective means of accessing healthcare for ourselves...it’s also technically illegal. 

Yet veterinarians do so every day. And so do you, though perhaps not with access to the arsenal of drugs...

Seriously, everyone was best kept far away from me yesterday after my Saturday morning disaster client. I even found myself apologizing to a waitress after snapping at her when my lunch order arrived all wrong. “It was a bad, bad pet owner’s fault,” I was forced to disclaim when everyone at the table looked at me as if I’d suddenly grown horns. 

But enough about the sorry aftermath, here’s...

As if it’s not already tough enough to discuss weight loss, veterinarians get treated to a range of excuses for why their pets are tipping the scales. Broaching the “o” subject is itself an adventure, one which is commonly met with defensive postures, nervous laughs or just plain disdain. 

At the outset of any conversation on the subject of extreme body mass and its ills, with fat pet as...

How many times do I have to say it before my clients digest the recc? Spare your pet the nightmare fecal rod and BYO sample...please!

Do I really have to post a statement to that effect in the waiting room? Given the reluctance-slash-memory lapse on my clients’ part when it comes to snatching a fresh sample pre-visit, the 8.5 x 11 poopy poster goes up this week.

Much as I try to make the...