DOG HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Dog owners are generically worried about anesthesia and surgery, says John Berg, DVM, a veterinary surgeon at Tufts. But they tend to be specifically worried about chest surgery. When you open the chest cavity, the dog cant breathe on his own and has to be on a ventilator, which understandably scares people. Also, chest surgery is usually about the heart or lungs, organs that are important to life on a second-by-second basis. As a…

It has been standard advice for a number of years that to reduce the risk for bloat, a life-threatening condition in which a dogs stomach literally flips over and knots up blood vessels leading to the spleen and other tissues, owners should not let their pets run around or engage in any other physical activity right after eating. Our mothers never let us swim after we ate, says Tufts veterinary surgeon John Berg, DVM,…

Back in October, we introduced Sydney, a 13-year-old golden retriever who, by all accounts, seemed to have the canine version of Alzheimers disease, called canine cognitive dysfunction. Her owner, Karen Feeney of Littleton, Massachusetts, described what is commonly referred to as Sundowners syndrome, a condition seen in both people and dogs experiencing cognitive decline. Its characterized by an anxious burst of energy after dark. The condition kept Sydney agitated, pacing, and startling easily when…

It was when Sam-I-Am started coughing continually and breathing heavily, particularly in warm weather, that Lucy Keefe decided to bring the 12-year-old chocolate Lab to see John Berg, DVM, a soft tissue surgeon at Tufts and the editor-in-chief of Your Dog. It turned out Sam had developed a condition called laryngeal paralysis, most commonly seen in older, large-breed dogs such as Labs and golden retrievers. …

Historically, laryngeal paralysis has been thought of as an idiopathic disease, meaning no cause had ever been identified. It appeared to spring up on its own, with a changed bark noted about half the time and two out of three dogs with the condition experiencing difficulty inhaling, gagging, throat-clearing, coughing, or choking sensations, most often associated with eating and drinking. …

Letter to Tufts Veterinarians - Sluggish thyroid, or faulty lab result?

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Whitney, a beautiful Great Dane, was absolutely fine until she turned about a year and a half. Thats when she started developing bumps on her skin. When the problem worsened, she would get secondary skin infections - sort of lesions on her skin, says Kim McCollough, Whitneys owner. There was some itching and hair loss, Ms. McCollough adds, but she looked worse than she was in terms of discomfort. …

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Newspapers from New York to England to India have now reported that kissing your dog can transmit gum disease. News anchors have broadcasted the same information. And Googling kissing dog gum disease yields no fewer than a dozen pages of site after site warning against sharing a peck with your pet. …

We can always use drugs to sedate a hospitalized patient whose anxiety is so extreme that it inhibits the dogs healing or makes it difficult to provide adequate nursing care, says Tufts veterinarian Claire Sharp, BVMS, who specializes in emergency and critical care medicine. But we prefer not to if we have a choice, she adds. The drugs do quite a good job and are relatively safe, but they render it harder to assess…

In too many cases, a dog is in pain from arthritis for quite a while before her owner recognizes that something is wrong. Thats because people tend to expect arthritic dogs to have an asymmetrical gait, such as a limp. But not all joint problems express themselves that way. Take, for example, the case of a dog whose elbow joints in both front legs hurt equally. Shes not going to favor one over the…