Well here it is, 90 degrees, and everyone is sweating. My weekend time to walk the dogs was too steamy. I become fairly hopeless when it gets hot, but I’m summoning the brain power to write about the heat! There is a lot to consider with our pets and the heat.
Speaking about vaccines and going to a conference on Lepto has gotten me charged up about spirochetes! For those of you not into the classification of dog disease bacteria (almost all of you) spirochetes are the type of bacteria that cause Lyme disease and leptospirosis. They are named that …
Since I spent a whole article on puppies and kittens, I thought this was a good time to talk about vaccines. Puppies and kittens get so many vaccines because their immune system isn’t fully mature yet. Adult dogs need fewer vaccines because they are fully immuno-competent. I will go over vac…
I realized as I wrote about our older sect of pets that I never write about babies! We see puppies and kittens so much that I feel like I talk about everything in those appointments. But I’m sure not all of you are my clients and some of you may be thinking about puppies or kittens in advance.
As I sit trying to get my baby to sleep, my cat is wandering around screaming. She has everything she needs, but at 16 is starting to get a little senile. I also have a 13 1/2-year-old dog and my “baby dog” just turned 8. So, today I am going to talk about the good and bad of old pets and wh…
Have you noticed the yellow coating of pollen on...well...everything? While plenty of pets have allergies year-round, this is a huge time to flare. Allergens that have been dormant all winter are rearing their polleny heads. So how do you know and what do you do?
Summer is getting closer. We are getting more long warm days. I let my woodstove go out, which is the official end of Spring. You may notice that your indoor cats are getting a little bit wilder. They might not have any real change in daylight, and they might not be out hunting field mice, b…
I just talked about poop, but all this rain has me thinking it is time I talk about pee! We think about it a lot when our dogs are puppies and peeing on the floor, but then we sort of forget about it. Sure we notice if our dogs pee on the floor again, but there is a lot more to urination tha…
I love preventative care, love it. I like seeing healthy pets at their best and doing the things I can to keep them there. Of course, I also like getting sick or broken pets better. I don’t even mind helping pets find a peaceful end. But by far my favorite thing is preventative care.
Poop, poop, poop. Why does Spring mean poop? Well, for those of you that haven’t religiously picked up poop all winter (OK, that’s all of us) and have dogs, you have probably discovered a large amount of dog poop in various stages of melting in your yard. We curse this springtime chore becau…
If you had to guess which holiday strikes the most fear into my heart, very few of you would guess correctly (except for the timing of this article!) Other holidays have more chocolate (maybe), more activity, and more issues. But in truth, the issues that Easter poses to our pets can be pret…
We have entered into Spring, no matter what the weather says. We do all our annual vaccines and exams throughout the year and try not to condense them all just into the spring. But, spring vaccines are cemented in many people’s minds. When spring rolls around we think about ticks and tick-bo…
I recently had a (personal) surgical procedure that ended up with a lot of pain. This brought to mind part of why I am so militant about pain control in my patients. There are a lot of things we don’t know about pain in animals, and much of what we do know we extrapolate from humans. I wante…
It seems like not very much time goes by in between my tick articles, but that is because not very much time goes by in between tick incidents around here. Those things just don’t take a break. I found them on my dogs on many of the warmer days this winter, but now real tick season has sprun…
So the weather is finally getting nicer. I know I should put an asterisk next to that given our recent snowstorm. But, we are having warmer days. The sun actually feels warm instead of just being a light source. We’ve had 10 mud seasons which means real spring is probably only three mud seas…
Though it also isn’t the most uplifting topic, I’m going to jump from cancer to euthanasia. While euthanasia is one of the hardest times for owners, the good part is that it is such an easy thing for our pets. I will talk about reaching the decision, how to decide, and then the process of eu…
Well let’s all face it, early March gets depressing. It is a mix between beautiful sunshine and disgusting mud, or cold icy windy weather. We have some hope for Spring on one day, then our hopes are dashed by frozen mud the next day. Then we’ll have a beautiful snowstorm and dream of powdery…
So it seems like the weather is extra weird lately. Each week we have one frigid day where I need every single piece of clothes that I own and one warm day where it feels like spring. That leaves us with lots of ice! Dogs are often more adaptable than humans, but I find this weather is weari…
February is national cat health month, and so I am going to take some time to talk about our kitty friends! Cats often get overlooked in my articles. This isn’t because I love them any less, it is just because they are more straightforward. Cats don’t often go for walks, they don’t eat silly…
There is no better time (for a strange veterinarian like myself) than Valentine’s Day to talk about heartworm disease. Some people think about cards and candy and love when people say that, but I think about hearts which leads me to think about heartworm disease.
Since it is now dental health month officially, I’ll follow up on last week’s article by talking about dentals specifically. If you didn’t catch it, read up to find out why dental health is so important to our pets. Now I’ll talk about what we do, start to finish when your pet comes in for a…
February is dental health month, and since we are on the cusp of February we are going to go over dental health. Three things are true about dentals and you might already know them they’re extremely important, often overlooked, and the majority of vets actually don’t love dentals! I fall in …
I am going to be honest, to start, fat cats are adorable. With their tiny round heads sprouting off a fat body there is not much more endearing. The bad news is that this excessive overweight cat cuteness combined with an inability to just “walk them more” tends to lead to overweight cats. W…
So you made a resolution to get your pet in shape, but already it seems a little less important than it did before. I get it. For some reason 2022 feels like it has lasted several years already. Maybe that’s just me, but it seems like it’s wearing thin already. So yes pets live longer, but l…
Time for a weight loss article! And the great thing about this one is that I can roll it in with resolutions. So instead of me just blabbering on about weight, we can make it part of a weight loss/fitness resolution if you made one. If you didn’t, that’s great too. I also didn’t. I also don’…
So we all know what my New Year’s article is going to be because I love talking about weight loss and diets in our pets. I’ll give you a reprieve for one week only but get the ball rolling by talking about food. You’re in luck because I just did a continuing education session talking about f…
So it seems my new holiday tradition here is doing a myth-busting article. I know we all have so much going on in our lives that this may not be the time for serious discussions. So I will keep it light and you can peruse some common myths while you eat Christmas ham and cookies.
We are getting toward that time of year when Christmas trees go up. I have a strong love for Christmas trees and especially lights. There is just something about a lit tree in my house that makes dark mornings and evenings brighter and happier. My cat has entered into the geriatric phase and…
T his seems a little bit early for a winter article, but alas...it just keeps wintering! For me this year the transition wasn’t smooth, and I recently realized that I haven’t really walked my dogs for close to a week. One of them cares, one of them is happy to sit next to the woodstove and o…
December is (just barely) here! I am not going to pretend that I am always an expedient gift giver. However, with backorders and shipping delays and everything else I am actually trying this year. This brings me to one of my most important December messages: do NOT ever gift pets. There are …
I know it is only mid-November, but I figured that if this article came out one day before Thanksgiving it would be way too late. So, like your menu (ideally) we are going to start prepping early for Thanksgiving with our pets!
We have had dentals after dentals lately. This is the first week we had a tooth break which gave me time to think about and talk about it. Dental health is so often overlooked but is so important to general health and how our pets feel.
So I’m going to start this article with a truth bomb — I don’t like hunting season. I know that people look forward to it all year, I know it can be the social event of a lifetime. I respect that. I think responsible hunting is great for the deer population and a good connection to the natur…
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays (OK, I love all holidays) and I feel like during COVID times holidays that are outside with masks are extra great. Most of the activities don’t involve your home, but there are still a few things to keep in mind with pets around this holiday.
Lately, I have been hearing a lot of things that are very commonly believed, but actually untrue. I figured it was time for another myth busters article! The important thing to remember is that these things are commonly believed, so no one blames you for believing them. I like to go over the…
We’ve covered the negatives of this time of year, but the truth is that the positives are bigger. We can walk, enjoy the amazing foliage, not deal with flying bugs and also not sweat. Honestly, for me, there is nothing better than being outside in the sunshine without being roasting hot and …
Off the Leash I talked about ticks last week, which are my least favorite little pests. This week I will talk about another downfall of this gorgeous weather; fleas. Fleas live pretty happily outside for most of the summer, but when it gets cold they want to hitch a ride in where it is warm.…
So I am going to digress from my autumn love fest to talk about one of the few things I hate about the season- ticks! I also don’t love those falls where it rains all the time, but for now, I’ll assume that isn’t going to happen. So back to my one true hatred of fall, the ticks.
We have all noticed the weather change lately, but did you know that there are a lot of other changes that happen as seasons change? Some of these are benign, but many of them actually cause changes enough that we see pets at the veterinarian for them. I will talk about a few of the changes,…
So I might be jumping the gun a little bit, but I love fall. As soon as it stops being a million degrees and I stop sweating every time I walk outside I get excited. There are so many great (informative? Maybe they aren’t all great per se) topics to cover about fall that I figure I might as …
It’s that time again — back to school! Whether this brings dread or elation, it happens regardless. I’m sure that some of our pets will be happy for a nice quiet house again, but others will suffer from the change from constant activity. We tend to forget about the changes our pets will go t…
Today I am going to get on my soapbox and talk about preventative care and early intervention. It is one of my favorite things that we do as veterinarians because we are able to stop diseases in so many cases. While the cost of preventative care may seem high, treating diseases associated wi…
You may have noticed recently that your favorite restaurant is closed some new random nights or that you can’t get an appointment with your veterinarian immediately. We can blame covid for some of the workplace crunches, but there are other factors. The face of veterinary medicine is changin…
Lately, I have had a lot of conversations about fear-free medications. Many good, some not as good. I wanted to talk about why fear-free is so important to me, what it means to me, and also what it means to your pet. It is a movement that has gained a lot of traction in veterinary medicine, …
OFF THE LEASH
As I sit here in sunny but not too hot weather, I’m in a wonderful mood. Since we are having a short burst of fall weather (my favorite) in my summer I’m going to talk about one of my favorite topics! I know I have a lot of favorites, but one that could use a revisit is pain. I don’t like to…
This week I’m going to continue my delayed July 4th article by talking about barbecues. This may seem like a silly topic, but coming off a year of not many social outings, new dogs and now introducing parties with food I promise it is not.
So I dropped the ball on the 4th of July article (as usual, time is passing much faster than I can keep up with!) Now the 4th has clearly passed. I was thinking I missed my chance to talk about booms and barbeques, but then I realized that fireworks, barbeques, and thunderstorms last all sum…
Summer is here, as evidenced by our hot thunderstorm week. School is out, the heat is out and vacations are planned. Especially after lockdown last year, the freedom of vaccines is making everyone extra excited to get out and about. However, vacations can’t be planned without planning for ou…
Lately, I have been getting many questions in the same vein, so I’m going to do a question and answer article. A lot of questions end up repeating themselves over time because you don’t worry about them until they happen for YOU and your pet, but these have come up a lot lately so are worth …
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