DOG HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Dogs seem happiest when they stink. Who among us hasn’t had—or at least seen—a dog happily rolling her body back and forth over something positively rank?

Q: I’ve noticed a little cauliflower-shaped bump on my 12-year-old dog’s forehead, between her right ear and eye. I think it has been bleeding periodically because sometimes it appears dark in color as if blood has dried. I know I have to take her to the doctor and am scared. Is it cancer?

For every four inches over average height, a person’s baseline risk for developing cancer rises by 10 percent, according to research conducted by Leonard Nunney, PhD, a professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the University of California, Riverside. There are a number of possible reasons, but much of the thinking behind the finding is that within any one species, the bigger you are, the more cells you have, and the more chance for them to mutate into cancerous forms when dividing and multiplying. Thus, if your baseline risk for cancer is 20 percent, for instance, it goes up 10 percent to a 22 percent risk if you’re 4 inches above average height.

People who need an upgrade in their pacemaker have started donating their out-of-date but still perfectly usable models to veterinary school practices for use in dogs. That considerably lowers the price for a canine pet who needs a pacemaker because his heart’s electrical rhythm is off. He may be weak, prone to sudden collapses, and at risk for sudden death. 

It’s true that certain medical conditions are more prevalent in particular dog breeds. Dachshunds are more likely to have problems with the discs in their spinal column than other dogs. A Yorkshire terrier is more likely to have a collapsing trachea, and a cavalier King Charles spaniel is more likely to develop a kind of heart disease called mitral valve disease. But a new study looking at more than 27,000 canines enrolled in the Dog Aging project—roughly half purebred pets and the other half mixed-breeds—found that the pedigreed pets were no more likely to have medical conditions in general over the course of their lives than the mutts.

People tend to shut down when the veterinarian says their dog is fat or obese. They take it as an affront, often interpreting those words to mean they are being told they are irresponsible pet owners.

There are essentially two types of drugs for dogs who experience high enough levels of anxiety that behavior modification techniques alone don’t keep them feeling calm and secure. One type is often referred to as “in the moment” medication. It means the dog just needs a short-acting drug to help him in particular situations that unnerve him to the point that he becomes aggressive or shows other signs of extreme stress, like cowering or hiding. Such situations might include thunderstorms or having to be near other dogs, say, at the veterinarian’s office. The other type of medication is longer-acting, working around the clock to take the edge off a dog’s chronic anxiety. It operates “in the background,” so to speak.

The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but a dog’s feet are often the windows to her health. Liver disease, allergies, and certain autoimmune conditions are just a few of the illnesses that play out on the feet of our canine pets. Here’s a quick guide to some of the most common diseases to strike dogs on their feet, how to recognize them, and how to treat them.

Q: My 7.5-year-old cockapoo, Lila, has had epilepsy for the past five years. She is currently managed with phenobarbital, Keppra, and potassium bromide. In the early days before effective control, she would have as many as 15 seizures in three days every two weeks. Are there any studies that indicate epilepsy can resolve after a period of time?  I raise this question because her medication has not changed for a long time, and she has gone from one seizure every couple months to none in over six months. This amount of medication, while useful for warding off seizures, seems to keep her docile and relatively inactive. If there was any proof of epilepsy resolving I would consider reducing the medication under the direction of her veterinarian.

There’s whitish or clear gook in the inner corner of your dog’s eye. Should you be concerned? Nope. It’s a normal dog thing. Just put warm water on a cotton ball and wipe the lower lid to remove it.

High blood pressure readings at the veterinarian’s office can lead to an expensive workup that includes various blood screenings and other tests. After all, canine high blood pressure can be a sign of kidney disease and other serious conditions. But what if your dog simply has white coat hypertension — blood pressure that’s too high at the doctor’s office because of anxiety about being there but perfectly fine at other times?

When a developing puppy is growing inside his mother, he does not need to breathe. The oxygen he requires to mature in utero comes not from his lungs but from the umbilical cord. Thus, after coursing through the body, blood does not travel through the fetus’s lungs to pick up oxygen for another pump out to the body by the heart. The lungs remain deflated, and blood bypasses them through a kind of shunt called the ductus arteriosus.