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It is so hard to watch your dog grow old before your very eyes. It seems like just yesterday, she was a bounding puppy! Now she is just a little stiffer and sleeps more. Wouldn’t you love to know some ways to help her age gracefully?  1. Help your dog get up and down As nerves and muscles age, certain movements can become difficult. Senior dogs are more likely to suffer from difficulty rising and impaired balance. This means that … Read more

Since our dogs are our closest companions and frequent travel buddies, we want to ensure they can travel safely with us. It is an established fact that a dog running loose in a moving car is not a safe situation. Injuries to the dog could occur in the event of an accident, and even worse, an accident could be caused by the unrestrained dog, injuring both the dog and people. Several states have distracted driving laws that could be enforced … Read more

Distemper is a serious disease, and we’ve seen several people express concern over it and the pain it can cause pets and their families. We asked Dr. Kathryn Primm, a veterinarian with over 20 years’ experience treating pets and owner of Applebrook Animal Hospital in Ooltewah, Tennessee to share her expert knowledge with our readers on the dangers of distemper, and what you can do to prevent it.   What should pet owners know about distemper?   Dr. Primm: Distemper is caused … Read more

Since our dogs are with us all the time, it is easy to forget that they are animals. They have evolved to have inborne natures that help protect them from the dangers in a wild environment. We know that our dogs have us to help protect them, but a dog’s early ancestors did not. All they had was what their instincts told them and what savvy they learned as they lived. Wild animals prefer cool fresh water to standing water. … Read more

You will never pee alone again… We laugh at jokes and memes that declare how having a dog means you never have to pee alone again, but it’s true. If we get to go to the bathroom, you can bet our dog is right behind us. Our dogs are really tuned in to us and curious as well, but seriously… do they have to attend our potty breaks? A question I see made out of curiosity a lot is – … Read more

Why does my dog lick my feet? Dogs do things that we might not love, and licking our feet is one of those things. We should never forget that our dogs are designed to communicate with others without using words. Communicating with dogs is like trying to learn a foreign language, only harder… because even the familiar letters are absent. Understanding why your dog does what he does is critical in maintaining your bond and growing your friendship. It makes … Read more

Does your vet speak to you in Pig Latin? Actually it is really Latin and Greek mostly. Here are some terms that I use that have gotten some questionable looks and I think that understanding what your vet is saying is the best way to have a pet health care team for your pets’ best lives. This is your crash mini course in Medical Terminology! #1 – Neoplasia The word neoplasia roughly translated from the Greek root word neo– new, … Read more

Fever is defined as a body temperature above the range that is considered normal for a healthy animal. Time and experience have shown us what these ranges are and we know that fever is one of the body’s signs that it is dealing with an infection. It is important for dog caregivers to be able to recognize signs that their dog might have a fever and be fighting an infection so that they know when to seek help from their … Read more

We all know how important it is to keep our dog’s nails trimmed. It helps save our floors and sometimes, our skin and it is also good for the dog too. Nails can grow too long and curl back into a dog’s skin and be uncomfortable. In a wild state, the dogs might be able to wear them down, but in our living rooms, they need a little help from us. The dewclaws on the side of the legs do … Read more

Summer is fun. The days are long and when school is out, everything seems to relax a little. Maybe it’s because people travel more or engage in their hobbies more. Folks go camping and hiking, boating or water skiing and many times, dogs are part of the fun. But what about summer might pose a risk to your dog, other then the usual threats, like snakes, heat, and bugs? Here are some summer risks that you might not have thought … Read more

We are aware of the dangers of sun exposure for ourselves and we hear frequently about skin cancers and the damaging effects of sun for people. The ultraviolet light radiation present in the light from the sun is the cause of the skin damage. Most of us have probably even experienced painful sunburn, so we would like to protect our dogs as much as we can. Sunscreen is recommended for humans to reduce the harmful effects, but what about for … Read more

Many things can cause redness and irritation of the eye. Most dog lovers want to know how to decide when to seek professional help and what is an emergency. Corneal injury is something that will require veterinary assistance and needs to be handled quickly. The cornea is very thin, and injuries can quickly penetrate it and rupture the globe of the eye, causing irreparable harm. If your dog seems to be in pain and squints his eye, your vet can … Read more

Got a puppy? Wonder just when he is going to stop growing? It’s a common question that veterinarians receive. When people adopt dogs from shelters and rescues as puppies, they usually do not know what breeds make up the dog. (the fact is, no one can guess with good accuracy either, see Think You Know A Pit Bull When You See it, So Did We….) People like to plan and even though it usually doesn’t matter because they already love … Read more

Anyone who cuddles a dog knows that sometimes there are unpleasant aromas associated with them. We are all familiar with the terms “dog breath” and “smell like a dog.” Not all smells will be helped by bathing. Some of them come from actual health issues and it is important to know the difference because one needs a bath (or 3) and the others will require medical intervention. Odors that will respond to bathing are things like rolling in stinky stuff … Read more

Ticks are creepy and crawly and look enough like spiders to make me and my staff cringe. They are not just repulsive, they also carry some pretty serious diseases. That’s why we should have all pets on a tick control product that helps prevent an infestation. But even the best protected dog can get an occasional tick. If you find one, you should remove it quickly because the longer a tick remains attached to the skin, the greater the chances … Read more

All dogs need to be cleaned sometimes, and some more than others! Because humans bathe frequently and take good hygiene for granted, we may think that baths are not particularly important or difficult, but there are some things that you should know when it comes to canine cleansing. 1. All shampoos are not created equal. Consumer advocates have published blog posts that declare that the human shampoo market is just a scam and that all shampoos are the same. It … Read more

Recent headlines about the threat of Zika virus have hit the news and social media. Scary stories about people getting sick have caught people’s attention. Even though it is in the headlines now, Zika virus is not new. It has been found in monkeys and apes since the 1940s. Usually disease in nonhuman primates is mild with only a transient fever, but the humans affected by Zika virus are much more significantly affected. Since the discussion has included monkeys and apes, … Read more

Anyone who has been around a dog knows that dogs communicate with their tails. Low wagging tails indicate submission. Relaxed waving tails can indicate relaxation and happiness. A stiff and high, slowly waving tail can indicate alertness or aggression. A friendly, wagging tail makes us smile and improves our bond with our dogs. Communication is an obvious function of your dog’s tail. But dogs may depend on their tails as part of their locomotion as well, just like scientists think … Read more

We love our dogs and want to take the best care of them, but we have to keep in mind that they belong to a different species than we do. Many of their features are very dissimilar from ours. We all remember as kids being warned that we should “wash behind our ears”. How about dogs? How often should their ears be cleaned? A healthy dog that spends most of her time indoors, may not require routine ear cleaning and … Read more

Do you have an older dog? Are you noticing changes in him/her? The most important thing that you can know is that aging is not an illness and there are things we can do to help dogs deal with some of the common age associated disorders. Joint issues are often age-associated troubles. Arthritis is a joint problem so extremely common that it gets overlooked and left untreated. Any living thing with bones and joints can get arthritis. More correctly called … Read more

Sleep is necessary for us all. Sleep allows our bodies to rest and regenerate and dogs are no different. Healing can occur during rest times and our brains and bodies need to reset during the inactive times that we sleep. Studies also show that there is a relationship between sleep and learning. 1 We know that sleep is important for ourselves and our dogs, so we would like to know how to tell if our dog is sleeping well. There are … Read more

Cheese is a favorite of a lot of humans. We love it and many of us keep it in our refrigerators almost all the time. We also love our dogs and like making them happy by sharing whatever we enjoy with them. We care about our dogs enough to know that we are responsible for keeping them safe, too. We humans can read labels and learn about food items to make educated choices while our dogs trust us enough to … Read more

Dogs can be allergic to things in the air, just like people. In people, this is commonly called “hay fever”, but it is not characterized by fever and it is not usually from hay either! Actually, hay fever is more accurately termed atopic dermatitis, which just means that the skin is inflamed in response to an antigen that is inhaled. Makes a little more sense when you call it what it is, huh? It might help to know a little … Read more

Marking behavior in a pet dog is a frustrating, but fairly natural behavior among dogs. There are many reasons for marking behavior, but no matter how natural it is, if your dog is marking inside your home, it is a problem. First, you have to decide if the behavior is actually intended to be a communication for your dog. Since you cannot ask your dog if he peed on something as a signal, you need your vet to help. A … Read more

You can bet that during your dog’s lifetime, he/she will need some type of surgery. Whether is to be spayed or neutered or it is to remove a skin tumor, anesthesia is a part of our world today and as a society, we are fortunate that anesthesia exists. Otherwise, many of us would not even be here to read this. Without surgical intervention, many of my patients would have been lost. The definition of anesthesia is a temporary loss of … Read more

There is some buzz about joint care supplements. People are intrigued by an opportunity to circumvent or augment the usual recommendations and drawn by the lure of alternative (non-traditional) options. In the past, veterinarians have been skeptical of complementary medicine, but joint supplements containing ingredients like glucosamine, chondroitin and others have science backing their effectiveness. Good Things Come to Those Who… Supplement? Studies have indicated that ingredients like glucosamine and chondroitin (and others) can reduce the inflammation in canine patients … Read more