Dog Health Archive
Something Fishy
Our pond has been frozen solid for months. Blanketed with snow for almost as long, it’s a stretch to remember how it appears in other seasons, when the dormant roses and river birch along its banks again fill with buds and blooms and birds; when the fish and frogs and turtles that somehow hibernate in
Category: Dog
Lovin’ from the Oven
Add this to the growing list of things I never imagined myself doing: baking homemade dog treats.
Category: Dog
Who’s Your Daddy?
“What do you suppose he is?” Tom asked as we walked with Steve and Willie along the trail at the Pea Island Sanctuary in Rodanthe, NC. “I don’t know,” I said, “but his PetFinder listing described him as a ‘long-haired Chihuahua crossed with a Toy Fox Terrier’, but his adoption coordinator admitted the breed descriptions
Category: Dog
Play Date
Friends joined us for lunch yesterday and brought along their little rescue mutt, a Jack Russell terrier mix named Mr. Chips. We’d been looking forward to this play date for weeks – meeting the charming and portable Mr. Chips had, after all, led directly to our deciding to adopt Willie. As I set the table
Category: Dog
Long Story Short
Willie was placed on a course of the antibiotic doxycycline and a monthly dose of immiticide, or heartworm preventive. He had no arsenic injection and required no period of confinement because this treatment eliminated any complications from dead worms breaking apart and traveling through Willie’s circulatory or respiratory systems. And while I still wasn’t comfortable
Category: Dog
The Doctor Will See You Now
I never intended to be this earnest or specific, never expected to offer any advice whatsoever about dogs, but my rescue mutt and I are going through something in real time that I think is worth sharing. Willie has been diagnosed with parasitic heartworms – a highly preventable, dangerous, and potentially fatal infection. And I
Category: Dog
Continuing Ed
So — no doubt about it — Willie has heartworms, and the news is heartbreaking and frightening. How many worms? How big are they? There’s no way to know without an expensive echocardiogram – or an autopsy — but one things is certain: Willie needs to be treated, and soon. I know the Internet will
Category: Dog
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
Willie’s been “off his feed” the past few days. I’ve seen this before – a day here or there in which he seems his usual happy and energetic self, yet has no interest in eating. It’s alarming because it seems so unnatural (A dog that doesn’t want food?), and yet I try to convince myself
Category: Dog