Back to school means different things to different people. To many parents, it is a sigh of relief and return to normal schedule. For many teachers, it is a return to normal schedule, but not always with a sigh of relief. You may be surprised to learn that back to school also has an impact o…

Many people balk at the idea of “alternative medicine” for their pets, but what does alternative really mean? We are quick to choose foods or products that claim to be all-natural, so why do we only look to drugs as a solution to our pet’s problems? While medication can be a very useful tool…

Anesthesia and surgery can be a scary thing for pet owners. One of the most common fears that I hear about procedures is putting pets under anesthesia. I understand this concern because everyone and every pet reacts differently to the medications used for anesthetizing, but I’m going to go o…

Summer is here, which gives families extra time at home together and longer days to reflect on needed new family members. We are seeing lots of new pets lately, which I love so much, but leads me to my next topic of choosing a new pet. As we all know, baby animals are adorable. One of the re…

We are in full-on summer mode! The temperatures are hitting the 90s, my air conditioning runs all night, and my hair is twice as voluminous and half as attractive. Summer is my personal least-favorite season, though I admit it has a few advantages. The long daylight and cooler nights can be …

We go out on the boat a lot. My dog loves to swim but I am afraid she will jump off when we are moving. How can I keep her safe?

Everyone has heard the lines on spaying and neutering, and for the most part it is a common practice. Not many of us have made it this far without heeding Bob Barker’s advice. I’ll help explain some reasons why it is so important. We will start with the fact that Bob Barker said so every day…

Imagine as you are going about your evening the sky is suddenly filled with bright flashes and loud noises. The Earth seems to actually tremble, and you feel the walls of your house vibrating. You thought this was a safe place, but the world seems to be exploding around you. Your owners are …

My dog loves to swim in the summer, but starts to get a lot of skin and ear infections. Is there anything I can do to prevent this but keep letting him swim?

Summertime and the living’s easy, mostly. Summer brings longer hours of daylight to do activities outside and often more free time. But it also brings increased heat, increased bugs (I think the mosquitos almost carried me away playing with the dogs in the yard) and more considerations for o…

I talk a LOT about ticks, but did you know that internal parasites are also a very real thing? We don’t tend to see this as often. I mean that they aren’t as common, and that we don’t see them with our eyes either. Worms and internal parasites are very common in puppies, and not as common in…

There is one topic that is near and not dear to my heart — Lyme disease. Not only are more and more dogs affected, but more and more people are as well. Lyme disease causes joint issues, kidney failure, heart disease and neurologic disease in dogs. I’ll go over the main things to know about …

One of my favorite things in my job is the ability to alleviate pain in our pets. While our pets seem very far from their wild counterparts, they still hold on to a few adaptations. One of these is the ability to hide their pain. While most of our pets would be lost without an owner putting …

People often say to me that the hardest part about my job must be putting pets to sleep. Full disclosure, this is actually not the hardest part. Make no mistake, I love my patients, and having to let them go does break my heart. But I also think that having the ability to release our pets fr…

So, it may not be raining the minute, or even day, that you are reading this. But, judging from the past few weeks, it will again very, very soon. We are suffering the effects of rain here big time.

As the grass turns green and a hundred dog poops appear on the lawn from melted snow, we finally welcome spring in all its glory. This brings me to some common questions from readers and clients.

Easter is a great time to welcome spring, regardless of your religious views. We are welcoming new grass, buds on trees, flowers peeking up from the ground. We also welcome many things in our house. Most of these are great for us (candy, flowers, delicious food) but not all of them are great…

Well, despite a few snowy interludes, it is mostly grass and relative warmth lately. This means that people are shaking themselves out of hibernation and getting those dogs out again. I love this, because I love exercising and fit dogs, but often they need a little behavior brush-up. If you …

Diabetes is something we are all familiar with, but did you know pets can get it too? I recently had gestational diabetes, which opened up a world of counting carbs and checking my blood sugar. It involved giving up baked goods and candy, but (hopefully!) that isn’t a problem with our animal…

So, as I sit here looking at a deep snow cover, it feels weird to broach my next topic. But that’s Vermont for you! The truth is that we started seeing them last week before the snow, and we will continue to see them this week as the snow melts. Environmental allergies start as soon as the w…

Two of my favorite things to talk about are pet fitness and tick prevention. This is clear to anyone who reads my articles, since you’re probably sick of hearing about both. BUT, the reason I go on and on about them is that they are so important to pet health, and I love healthy pets. So, we…

Spring is coming! Sure, it is in and out between lion and lamb, but the important thing is that I can go outside at 5:30 without a flashlight! While we often spread vaccines out over the year, spring means pet vaccines to most people. It also means that it is time to start thinking about pre…

For humans, culture dictates how elders are treated. In a way, this is the same for our pets. I like to think that our pets earn a lot of goodwill over their lives. They see us through big life events, heartbreaks and joys, weddings and divorces, births and deaths. They get calmer and easier…

I feel like coming out of February always lightens us all up. We may often get tons of snow in March, but the temperatures even out (no promises though), daylight is present for more than four hours and we see spring in our sights. Thankfully, I spent February with a new baby, so night and d…

The number-one concern that people have about dental cleanings is that the pet must go under anesthesia. I will walk you through a dental at our clinic and explain why being under anesthesia is in the best interest of everyone involved. Different clinics have different protocols, and this wi…

It is the week of Valentine’s Day! This means different things to different people. To some it means romantic dinners, to others (most of us) it means that delicious candy will soon be on sale. The one thing that everyone thinks about is hearts. Sure, we think about cute red and pink heart s…

February is pet dental health month. Dentals often get overlooked for many reasons. However, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t of the utmost importance. There is a very high chance that I’ve talked to you about it in the clinic, or that your veterinarian has. Although it may not be my favor…

This week you were promised ways to enrich your indoor feline’s life. This may be for a permanent indoor cat or a cat that is driven inside by the new snow and cold. You don’t have to wait until you are seeing issues to start these. In fact, if you do them from the beginning you may never ha…

My articles recently have been pretty dog heavy. While weight loss is just as, if not more, important for our cat friends, they sometimes get forgotten. Of course, walking with cats is my absolute favorite thing, but it can be tough to base your resolutions on planned outdoor cat jogging. Fo…

Well, it may have come later than planned, but it seems like winter has actually arrived in all of its glory. We’ve had the early dark, we have the snow, and now we’ve gotten the chance to experience both with very, very cold temperatures. We all knew it was just a matter of time, but is it …

So you made a weight/fitness resolution and you’re following my advice and getting your pet on board. Perfect start. Did you know, though, that most resolutions fail in February? That isn’t to discourage you, it’s simply to let you know that the road gets a little harder. You start to forget…

{print_subheadline}Make a New Year’s resolution for better health{/print_subheadline}

Life changes strike fear into my heart. I hate moving my life around and changing schedules and plans. I’ve taught my pets to also love routine and schedules, and not love breaking from the ordinary. I don’t like big new purchases, even. The funny thing about that? I have a baby on the way! …

We are now officially down to the gift-buying wire. Christmas is NEXT week, so you don’t even have seven days left. Some people thrive on this last-minute adrenaline, though I will admit I am not one of them. I like to have everything buttoned down well in advance. Last-minute inspiration ca…

So, for the first time in a while, I failed to get my Christmas tree in November. This is a big letdown for me, but thankfully it is now up. For that reason, my holiday article is also a little bit late, since I’m always reminded by the animals gazing at my tree.

This week I’m going to talk about a fairly boring but very important topic — zoonotic diseases. Long name, but a pretty simple definition. A zoonotic disease is a disease that can be spread between humans and animals. The truth is that a very wide variety of diseases can be zoonotic. In fact…

Are you ready for Thanksgiving? Hopefully, your turkey is thawed, your house is clean (if you are having guests, a good reason not to) and your TV is set for football. I typically love Thanksgiving. In my ideal world I wake up and do some baking, then some eating, play with my animals, eat a…

When I got my first dog as an adult in vet school, one of the first things I taught her was to drop and leave it. One of the next things was to not take food that wasn’t hers. Before you get too impressed, I did this for two selfish reasons. First, she loved to pick up disgusting things like…

This week we’re going to talk about a very common problem this time of year. For some reason, this year it started early, before any holidays started. In one day I had one of my dogs with, let’s say, very loose stools and the other throwing up. About half the patients I saw all week were the…

Whenever we have big weather changes, we also see urinary issues. I don’t understand why this happens, especially in cats living indoors, where the temperature is controlled. What I do know is that we get big increases in urinary issues with big temperature and humidity swings. Usually, we g…

I love the changing leaves, walking outside without sweating and swarms of bugs. Essentially, there isn’t much I don’t love about fall. And that includes Halloween. There are a few things though, including pets with chocolate toxicity. This year, pay attention to the rare downfalls so that y…

While I sat at the computer and wondered where my vibrant, sun-filled fall days had gone, I decided that I would talk again about some pet myths. Sometimes I feel like the internet has actually made disinformation worse, despite how easy it is to get good information. The issue with the inte…

So, rain in the fall bums me out a little bit, but I can cope with that. What’s the one thing about fall that I actually hate? Ticks! I hate them more than cold rainy days, more than fleas and even more than having wet socks while I walk on cold rainy days. I hate them because they are wides…

This week is National Walk Your Dog Week. I’m not even lying, it is like someone made a holiday just for me. Walking my dogs is one of my all-time favorite things to do. I love it because I stay more fit than I otherwise would (fit is a relative term.) I spend time outdoors which is good for…

I certainly am not a dog trainer, but since I have two perfectly behaved dogs I am an expert. Just kidding! My dogs are pretty good, but that is just because I put a lot of time into training them. The reason I care about training for my patients isn’t because I have to live with them, but b…