He just seems to get better by the hour. I’m not ready to say we’re out of the woods, but he’s on his third can of dog food (prescription diet I/D). No more vomiting, but he’s still got some loose feces, still doing a little straining. He trotted all over the back yard and marked […]
Author Archives: Doc
Yesterday we had a rather unusual case of the dog who "can’t go". The "take-home message" is that we always take this complaint seriously. "Acting constipated" is a not uncommon description of a pet’s situation. Upon receiving this complaint, the thoughtful veterinarian’s next step is to ask the owner what the pet is actually doing. […]
This is pretty much out of my "local listening area". Some bags of Ol’ Roy have been recalled out east due to some Salmonella contamination at the factory. Salmonella is the bacteria most often associated with "food poisoning". The big dogs say you can get infected with it from just handling the contaminated food. This […]
Okay, now I am running low on titles. This is still pretty shaky stuff, but since it appeared on Veterinary Information Network, I’m passing it on. Some pet food samples are believed to be contaminated with acetaminophen (Tylenol). This would have small consequence for most dogs, but it doesn’t take much to put a cat […]
Of course, I really should say "Cystic Calculi", but does that communicate as well as "bladder stones"? These babies weigh 8 grams apiece and they’re bigger than a pair of dice. Too bad they only have 5 sides each. Of course, even if you painted numbers on them, it would take a while before they […]
Hardly a day goes by that I don't ruminate on the difficulty of the long-haired pet. If nothing else, I want them to roll up their sleeves when I draw blood. Those long, silky coats are mutations. They can be beautiful when well cared for, but the pet cannot care for that upholstery by himself. […]
The Sons of the Western Bootheel will be singing cowboy songs and telling stupid jokes this weekend in two performances that are free and open to the public. Saturday evening at 7:00 PM we’ll be at Trail of Tears State Park north of Jackson, Missouri. On Sunday, we’ll be at Bollinger Mill State Park at […]
Nutritional wisdom is the concept that an animal somehow innately knows what nutrients its body needs, and also where to obtain them. For example, if your body were low on potassium, you would instinctively know to eat a banana. And you thought those banana cravings were just evidence in support of the "Man-from-monkeys" evolution theory. […]
Sometimes you meet people who don’t want to get a check-up because "they’re afraid the doctor might find something". This has always struck me as strange — this notion that if nobody notices the problem, there really isn’t a problem. This might be true for a cosmetic defect, but if you’ve got a major medical […]
A couple of weeks ago my daughter, Blair, graduated from college. From a freshman year that was all about getting into that special sorority, to graduating summa cum laude as a plant science major, it’s been quite a trip. She was persuaded to take honors courses based on her big ACT score and being the […]