Imagine your pet suffers from an insidious disease she’ll have to suffer with for the rest of her life. Next, picture a simple surgery that can fix it. No more drugs. No more side effects. No more constant testing.

Not that you general practitioner or internal medicine specialist doesn’t deserve a shot at treating your pet’s ills. And trust me, you’ll not yet want to go running off to the...

Pet owners make all kinds of excuses for their fat pets. This especially popular Dolittler entry from a few months back exposes them. Today’s post offers yet another I should have detailed. It's one that gets cited most every time I discuss a canine exercise regimen in any detail: “But she hurts whenever I try to exercise her.”

It’s a conundrum, really. And it's not just to do with overweight...

If you’re a great client and you ask, I’ll sell you a vaccine to administer at home to your pets––for your convenience––as long as you’re willing to listen to my speal on the subject of proper vaccine storage, handling and administration. But that doesn’t mean I support the extra-veterinary sales of biologicals like vaccines––not by a long shot.

This week on Dolittler has been lousy with talk...

Can you think of a scenario more nostalgic than one in which you’re forced to undertake a picture-by-picture, letter-by-letter purge of your personal life?

Long-departed pets shoulder their way back in, their images proliferating on your bedspread. Their old tags tinkle alongside Canine Good Citizen certificates as a ream of ancient adoption paperwork flutters to the floor.

Spring cleaning...

No, I haven’t yet written the great American novel. Or the great American veterinary tome, either. But now that my introduction’s attached to Homer’s Odyssey, I’ve officially been published in a hardcover book. As of today, it's available on Amazon for your shopping pleasure.

Lest you think I’ve been moonlighting as a classics prof, let me explain: Subtitled, “A Fearless Feline Tale, Or How I...

Veterinary medicine trades in the grossest things. While working in an inner city human ER may best veterinary medicine on the “dirty job” meter, that’s only because of the presence of the microscopic filth that can kill you. I think my profession is way more disgusting––grossly, anyway.

That’s why my pre-teen son worries he might not be able to hack a distinguished career in veterinary...

In just one week I’ve seen two separate incidents in which common veterinary products purchased online don't seem to be what they say they are. Both were ordered from large, well-established outlets and neither has yet been evaluated for its true contents. But they don’t look like the real thing.

What gave it away?

One box of Frontline. One box of Heartgard. On the outside, both looked...

Forget about H1N1 for the moment. Let’s talk H3N8.

Now that more states have experienced this nasty strain of the Canine Influenza Virus (there was an outbreak in Virginia last week and now New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Colorado are seeing it) the so-called “dog flu” is again in the news media.

Despite the occasional lull in the general press, you’ll be gratified to hear that for us...

CAUTION: Long rant in progress.

No this post is not a continuation of yesterday’s post on animal cruelty––nor was it intended as its corollary. Rather, today’s is a completely standalone rant on the subject of how some clients come to abuse of their veterinary care provider’s kindnesses.

I’ve posted here before on the subject of financial stress in recessionary times and how veterinarians...

Bringing a legal case against an alleged animal cruelty offender is tough slogging. I get lots of email on the subject and I have a hard time explaining to people why that’s so.

The short answer is simple yet incomprehensible to many of us: Our culture does not yet value the lives of animals the same way we do here on Dolittler. The concept of pets as family may be alive and well...but it’s...