Visiting Vet: Intercat aggression
I was 13, palling around with my friends downtown, when we came across a man dangling a paper bag off a bridge over the river. When we heard a faint mew, we insisted he...
Visiting Vet: Have a pet-friendly holiday
On Monday, Nov. 21, I took the turkey out of the freezer. OK, I asked my husband Max to do it, but I was the one who remembered. OK, it was actually a Facebook...
Visiting Vet: Solensia
When my children were young (boy, that makes me feel old), let’s try again. When my children were younger (that’s better), they wanted kittens. Okay, Sydney wanted a horse, and Lila wanted a boa...
Visiting Vet: Head tremors
Salty, a 3-year-old medium-size retriever mix, woke up last week and began making a strange bobbing motion with her head. She seemed completely fine otherwise, and had never exhibited anything like this before, but...
Visiting Vet: Heartworm sneaks through
Sunflower is a typical rescue dog, transported here from Texas as a 10-week-old puppy by a pet adoption group. She arrived with six littermates, and all the paperwork showing puppy shots, fecal tests, health...
Visiting Vet: Sea change
On Thursday evening, August 25, I got a call from Richard, my mother’s partner for 28 years. Both in their 90s, the two have been living independently in the house where I grew up...
Visiting Vet: Euthanasia is not the hardest part of the job
“This must be the hardest part of your job.” That’s what people always say when we are about to euthanize an animal. My reply is almost always the same: “No. It’s not.” And in...
Visiting Vet: It showed up in the eyes first
Harmonia, a 60-pound middle-aged dog, has had her share of mishaps and ailments over the years, but over all has been a happy, healthy dog. Then this spring, she developed a bad case of...
Visiting Vet: Feline asthma
Prince Hal is a handsome middle-aged long-haired cat. Other than recurrent bouts of urinary tract issues in his youth, Hal has not had much occasion to visit me. We recommend annual physical exams, but...
Visiting Vet: Behavior questions
“Oh, by the way,” the owner said as she was leaving with her cat at the end of their 20-minute annual appointment for physical exam and vaccinations. “Cheshire has been urinating outside her box...
Visiting Vet: An outside cat brings home the bunny
Sylvester is a handsome adult cat who lives in a rural, wooded area of West Tisbury. Like many country cats, Sly goes outside and roams around, and, like many country cats, enjoys exhibiting his...
Visiting Vet: Taking the hunt to your indoor cat
When I was a child, my family had cats. There were Puss, Eloise, Gorilla, and Stinky. There were Pywacket, Farfel, and Nobody, and others whose names elude me at the moment. We lived on...
Visiting Vet: The cat and the carrier
It’s one of life’s little mysteries — the fact that cats love to explore, investigating every tiny hidey-hole they can find, crawling inside paper bags, sleeping in cardboard boxes, but try to put a...
Visiting Vet: Fear-biting and ways to address it
Merlot is a scrappy little dog, born feral on a tropical island. The papers that came with him from the Caribbean animal shelter say “Location Found — Under Shed.” A difficult beginning. But his...
Visiting Vet: Feline chin acne
Minato and Umaki are two sweet but sometimes shy siblings. Born feral, this brother and sister pair were taken in as kittens by a rescue organization, and eventually placed together in a wonderful home...
Visiting Vet: Urinary stones
Early one morning, Balboa, a 5-year-old male shih tzu, was let outside to powder his nose. OK, dogs don’t powder their noses. Even people don’t really powder their noses anymore, but it seemed indelicate...
Visiting Vet: Was it GME?
The first episode happened when Tidbit was 2 years old. In the middle of the night, the young Labrador retriever was jumping off an armchair where she had been sleeping, when she abruptly fell...
Visiting Vet: It wasn’t an easy birth
All I remember is she was a very big dog. A Great Pyrenees or Saint Bernard. It was back in the day when we almost never referred patients to specialists, and when I still...
Visiting Vet: When chocolate isn’t sweet
It all started with a small tropical tree indigenous to South and Central America, Theobroma cacao. This tree grows big red fruit pods. Inside the pods are seeds, also called beans. For more than...
Visiting Vet: Cats and dogs
Sprinkles is a sweet, petite, 8-month-old cat who shares her home with her sister Sprocket, and her “cousin” Pippa, a 6-month-old Labrador retriever. Despite the stereotype of “fighting like cats and dogs,” there are...