OpEd: I am a big believer in the family bed. For the first 13 years of marriage, a herd of cats and dogs joined my wife and me in bed every night. After that, our two children, who were four years apart, joined the menagerie. The results were extraordinary. The bonding with our pets was […]

When I was in veterinary school, I learned that as long as a dog has normal eyesight, fly biting behavior (snapping at the air as if trying to catch a nonexistent fly) is usually a symptom of a partial seizure.   A partial seizure is caused by abnormal electrical activity within a relatively small portion […]

In this multipart series, I’m covering the topic of staging cancer patients and why doing so is important in the process of determining if our companion canines and felines have detectable cancer or if they are in remission.   The staging process is one in which I have to partake on an ongoing basis with […]

When a pet is diagnosed with cancer, the degree to which the body is affected by disease often isn't immediately obvious. While an owner may see a mass-like lesion on a pet’s limb, masses having the same or different cellular makeup can potentially lurk elsewhere in the body.   For descriptive purposes, I use the term […]

A recently published study points to a disturbing trend in dog ownership.   Researchers analyzed Australian National Kennel Council (ANKC) registration statistics from 1986 to 2013 for 181 breeds. They found that people are becoming increasingly likely to purchase smaller, brachycephalic dogs. In other words, breeds like Pugs and Bulldogs that have a short muzzle, […]

This week, I received the happy word that the latest mass I had removed from Brody was benign. Given that he has already dealt with two big baddies—melanoma and mast cell tumor, the latter necessitating the amputation of his ear—this is a big deal. I’m not going to lie, I did a little happy dance. […]

It only takes a second for one mistake to change everything.   By all accounts, Stacy Konwiser knew what she was doing. As the lead tiger keeper at the Palm Beach Zoo, Konwiser was an experienced handler and was familiar with the protocols meant to keep both animals and people safe. When she was fatally […]

Nationwide Insurance recently reported the top ten medical conditions affecting dogs and cats and their associated costs based on data from claims from over 1.3 million owners for more than 550,000 pets.   I assumed cancer would be the top disease on the list for both species. It is the most frequently diagnosed illness in […]

Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) is a terrible diagnosis. Veterinarians don’t have much to offer cats with FIP other than symptomatic treatment that, at best, only keeps them comfortable for a relatively short period of time before death inevitably follows.   We may be on the verge of a big breakthrough in FIP treatment, however.   […]

Now that you’ve read What is 'Staging' and Why Is it Important for the Pet Cancer Patient? and Staging for Canine and Feline Cancer Patients – The Blood Testing Stage, it’s time to move on to the next in this series.   Having covered the concept of staging and how blood testing is a crucial aspect […]