Thursday, March 28, 2024

Visiting Vet

One sick Westie

“This shot should stop the vomiting,” I said confidently, syringe in hand. The little West Highland white terrier had been throwing up all day. Despite my recent column about the imprudence of assuming every...

A Christmas Eve dilemma

With everyone busy with holiday preparations, travel plans, or visiting friends and family, late December is usually a peaceful time around my office. Most of my staff was away, but Susan, my long-term secretary...

HGE is only seen in dogs, but what is it?

Little Bamboo arrived on an emergency wrapped in a towel. The elderly Yorkshire terrier was struggling to breathe, wheezing and snorting with each inhalation. Other than her heaving chest, she was limp, barely able...

Howling

Many years ago, Pat Rogers gave me a cassette tape of Christmas carols ... sung entirely by cats. No kidding. Someone had recorded meows of all pitches, durations, and intonations, and pieced them together...

Them Bones

It was late in the day. Busy with patients, I couldn’t come to the phone, but my secretary relayed the message. “Lucky has a bone stuck in her mouth,” she reported. Now, I always...

Slick, a dog of a different color

Slick is an 11-year-old black Labrador retriever. At least, she used to be black. Perhaps she got tired of the ubiquitous Black Dog of Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps she has always harbored secret dreams of...

Visiting Vet: When Starr ate rat poison

Starr is a typical Labrador retriever, which means he loves to eat and isn’t picky about the menu. So it was no surprise that when he discovered a block of rat poison, Starr chowed...

What’s with the stuffy nose?

When Taquka-aq, the 12-year-old golden retriever, presented with a complaint of unilateral nasal discharge, my first thought was, “Uh-oh, nasal tumor.” If your pet has a runny nose, you probably think he has a...

Malignant melanoma

Nesta, the senior yellow Labrador, arrived for his annual visit. We hadn’t seen much of the old man this year. He had been remarkably healthy, despite his severe chronic arthritis, which his owner was...

Getting to the bottom of Blanche’s problems

A client called last week because her cat, Blanche, was having diarrhea. I will pause while you giggle. We are going to talk about ... well, you know ... feces. Cultural taboos around all...

Eating light bulbs

The dog wasn’t even on-Island, but I have known the owner since she was a little girl, and she wanted my advice. “He ate one of those spiral light bulbs,” she told me over...

Is he deaf?

I used to share a house with a huge, ancient dog named Major. Major would lie in the middle of the floor, an immovable mountain, where guests would have to step over him. You...

Lucy might be royalty

Lucy is a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Ancestors of this breed were probably developed in 16th century Europe by crossing small spaniels with “Oriental” toy breeds such as the Japanese Chin, pug, or Tibetan...

Visiting Vet: Something’s wrong with Gamaliel

The gentle chirp of crickets alerts me to a weekend text message from my answering service — a pleasant improvement from the days when every emergency was announced by the loud, adrenaline-producing jangle of...

 Travels with Fido

Waving goodbye to my older daughter as she headed off to summer camp in New Hampshire, I sat down, teary-eyed, to write, but I couldn’t concentrate. Instead of drafting a treatise about Rocky Mountain...

Visiting Vet: Little dog brings big challenge

Tidbit is a tiny toy poodle, weighing only 5 pounds. OK, I don’t really have a patient named Tidbit, but let’s imagine I do. Little dogs pose unique challenges for veterinarians. It can be...

Encountering new diseases

In 2004, 22 greyhounds at a Florida racetrack came down with fever and cough. Outbreaks of respiratory disease in such close-quarter environments are often caused by a variety of infections we lump together and...

An elderly bishon with a series of troubles

Violet is a bichon frisé. No, that’s not a kind of lettuce. It’s a canine breed the AKC describes as a “small, sturdy, white powder puff of a dog” with a “merry temperament.” Bichons...

Straight to the specialist?

If you’ve been reading my column faithfully, you already know I broke my big toe a few weeks ago. (I like to remind people I did it falling off my bike, an admirably active...

Toes

I fell off my bike last week and, being old enough that I no longer bounce well, I broke my toe. My big toe. Which got me thinking about toes. “Maybe I should write...