In last month’s issue of Veterinary Economics there’s an article by Mark Opperman, CVPM on the power of online veterinarian ratings to either boost or bite into our bottom lines. Apparently, service-review sites like InsiderPages, CitySearch and ReadyVetGo can really make a difference to our potential Web-surfing clientele.

Vets are urged to Google their hospitals to learn more about what...

OK so it’s not exactly the most modest statement I’ve ever made but I’ll say it anyway:  I’m so proud of Dolittler! Lookie here, right under my logo is a beautiful banner belonging to perhaps the most intelligent sponsor in the pet world: Good News for Pets!

It's a milestone for sure and the culmination of lots of stresful legwork for this vet, as those of you reading Dolittler for a while will...

Here’s a post where I ask you, my dear readers, to please help me out on an issue that’s been dogging me these past couple of weeks.

Remember Dusty, the sweet, sickly, tick-ridden  Ehrlichia girl of a Virtual Vet Hospital post? One of you, yet again proving your individual and collective wonderfulness as readers, offered to contribute financially to her care. Given that her owner is unable to...

There’s been a lot of horseplay in the media in recent years on the concept of truly disgusting professions. The mushroom farmer manure-slinger, zero-gravity vomit quicker-picker-upper and bed-pan disaster beneficiary, etc… The Discovery Channel even has a popular show called “Dirty Jobs” to highlight the visual aspects of these revolting trades.

Recently, NPR conducted a decidedly higher-brow...

After my post on blogging I received a nice bunch of emails from fellow pet bloggers urging me not to pull an Itchmo. Among these well-wishers, fellow pet industry geek Alex Krooglik of Embrace Pet Insurance offered me an analytical glimpse at why I shouldn’t give up:

Though I’m told most bloggers are mad about their stats, I confess to being somewhat oblivious of the traffic that makes its way...

Hot on the heels of my rant on the potential horrors of retractable leashes comes this one on cat carriers.

Granted that cats are hard to catch when they mysteriously surmise it’s vet visit time. A lot of it has to do with the placement of the cat carrier after you’ve decided to hose it down or otherwise clean it up so your vet doesn’t think you’re a horrible owner and a slob to boot. Then...

OK so I didn’t expect my first appearance on TV as a vet to be a national one. International, even, if you consider the broad audience of mixed nationality US Hispanics.

Nope. I expected something sleepy and local where I wouldn’t be up against all that cleavage! (If you’ve ever watched Univision or Telemundo you’ll know what I’m talking about.)

Tomorrow on 7:30 AM EST on Telemundo you too can...

I love love love kitties but my son is highly allergic and predisposed to asthma. The last time I brought a cat home (Helen, for the weekend) his face puffed up and the congestion lasted three days beyond her departure.

But I can’t justify keeping cats out of doors. Not when I know most of my local strays are FIV-positive. Not while I still occasionally take on the neighborhood detail of...

It’s too late after your Cavalier King Spaniel’s chewed through the power cord behind the fridge in your garage. She’s gone. And all those miscellaneous pills, baby toys and cat stool consumed?—not to mention the woodworking gnawed off your favorite chair. You could have avoided that, too.

Sure, a cage muzzle doesn’t scream, “I’m so cute you gotta pet me!” But it can save your butt when the...

Betsy the Border Collie knows more than 300 words. Sure, she’s no Alex-the-African Grey. She won’t be speaking them anytime soon. But she knows them. She can act on them. And she understands them in different contexts, displaying a knack for abstract thinking we’d never before thought possible in animals—not to mention dogs.

So goes National Geographic's March 2008 cover story. It details the...