Monday - Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. | Closed Sunday
Monday - Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Closed Sunday
Call (719) 219-8569
Call (719) 219-8569
Diabetes mellitus. Not so long ago that diagnosis was an automatic death sentence for a dog or a cat. Both veterinary and human medicine have come a long way in dealing with the disease, and now we have excellent treatment options available that can often mean that family pets with diabetes can comfortably live the rest of their natural lives in spite of the disease.
September is a big time of year for ear infections. One of the first things many owners do when encountering their pet’s first ear infection is to go to the pet supply store and got some ear mite medication. After weeks of use it never seems to have fixed the problem. In this area ear mites are almost never the source of the problem except in the case of very young kittens and the rare adult cat. I have yet to see an ear mite infestation in an adult dog. Still, a quick look in the ears can lead to a diagnosis which can then be followed by appropriately targeted treatment.
Here is a scenario that almost anybody who has had a dog has probably experienced at one time. You are puttering around the house when out of the corner of your eye you notice the dog intently doing something, and when the dog is doing something that intently it usually means she is up to no good. You turn and ask "What have you got there?". The dog looks up and freezes, a green novelty sock you bought for your husband dangling out of her mouth. You lock eyes for one second, and then as you rapidly advance toward the dog she just as rapidly starts chewing and gulping. You get there just in time to see the tip of the toe disappear down the gullet. What do you do now?
Sometimes, especially after a quick and uneventful physical exam and vaccination appointment with a young, healthy animal I can almost hear some owners thinking “I paid sixty bucks for that. I could have told you my pet was fine and saved the wrestling match and lacerations trying to get the cat into the carrier to get here if I just got the vaccines that are so easily available and inexpensive online or at the feed store and gave them myself.” Well, this is the story of some clients of mine that may shed some light on the feed store vaccine issue.
Several years ago I had a client come to me with their new rabbit for a neuter. She explained to me that both she and her son was very anxious about the surgery because his previous rabbit had just died of respiratory disease and she wasn’t sure he would be able to take it if he lost another rabbit so soon. The surgery went well, and the rabbit went home uneventfully. A few days later they rushed him back in to the clinic in a panic. The rabbit had seemed perfectly normal, but they had found him collapsed in his hutch in the garage this sunny June afternoon. Unfortunately the rabbit had died en route to the hospital but when he arrived his body felt like he had just come out of the oven. His body temperature measured higher than 110 degrees that is the top end of what the thermometer would read. The rabbit had died of heat stroke.