My veterinarian wants to do an expensive treatment on my dog because she has heart worms. What is your opinion about that?
Heartworm disease is deadly. The worms sit in the valve between the right side of the heart and the lungs, interfere with blood flow, make the heart bigger so it works less efficiently and can have some unusual side effects, and can lead to death. However, there are...
My dog occasionally has bloody stools, but after a couple of days, it goes away. What could that be?
Bloody poo is certainly alarming and reason to do further investigation. Here are a few things: it could be giardia, an intestinal protozoan (dogs drink dirty water, ingest giardia from another animal who has pooped nearby and had giardia). Giardia can cause off and...
Do you need flea medication year round, or can you stop when winter arrives?
Fleas!?! Yuck!!! About 10 years ago, the answer was: when the first frost hits, you are good until next spring. Conditions have changed. More pets, increased use of the same product year after year after year (for the last 10 years); things have definitely changed! I...
Newsflash: recall of common thyroid medication for dogs with low thyroid function (hypothyroid) – what do you recommend in lieu of thyroid medication?
You gotta ask WHY does my dog have low thyroid? Did your veterinarian run the full panel (T3, T4, free T3, free T4, TGAA that gets sent off to another lab, ideally Hemopet http://www.hemopet.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24&Itemid=39 or...