Anesthesia-free dental cleaning for your pet sounds rather tempting, doesn’t it? Before you jump on this bandwagon I encourage you to consider whether or not this option truly serves your dog’s or your cat’s best health interest.

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I refer to my last week at work as the “Murphy and Ruska Show” in honor of two delightful patients who arrived at my doorstep one day apart, each with a life-threatening disorder called pneumothorax. “Pneumo” means air and “thorax” refers to the chest cavity, so “pneumothorax” is air within the chest cavity. [More]

Nothing quite tickles my heart like stories conveying the human animal connection. Sometimes such stories put a big goofy grin on my face, and sometimes they cause my eyes and nose to become uncontrolled leaky faucets. Needless to say, I prefer the former to the latter! [More]

Is your dog’s bad breath sabotaging your cuddle time? Is your kitty drooling while nibbling her kibble? If so, your four-legged family member likely has dental disease. A recent study of Banfield Pet Hospital’s 770-hospital network identified dental disease as the most common malady among pets, affecting 68 percent of cats and 78 percent of dogs over three years of age. [More]

My dual career as an author and a practicing veterinarian provides me with a unique vantage point. Not only am I privy to the issues my veterinary colleagues are stewing about, I also receive a plethora of emails from my readers candidly venting about their experiences as consumers of veterinary medicine. It’s rare that those on both sides of the exam room table are growling about the same issue, but these days this is certainly the case. [More]