Conditions

Persistent Vomiting in a Dog: Is It An Emergency When Your Dog Keeps Vomiting? Pirate’s Story

Everything was going great for Pirate until one day he kept vomiting brown liquid with bits of grass. It’s not like never threw up before, of course, he did every now and then. By early afternoon, Pirate vomited six times already. That in itself is a big red flag. Projectile vomiting, vomiting repeatedly, vomiting blood (fresh or digested), unproductive wretching,…

by Jana Rade

Is Inability to Stand an Emergency?

There is a difference between acute inability to stand and an ongoing condition where the dog might have already diagnosed issues such as spinal injury or any other problem causing paralysis, extreme weakness or loss of balance. A chronic, established condition isn’t an emergency unless something abruptly changes. For example, after her hyperthermia horror, Jasmine was unable to get up…

by Jana Rade

Tick Prevention for Dogs: What Do You Use for Tick Prevention?

In Cookie’s wellness exam results report, I mentioned that ticks, which weren’t really ever a big problem for us, suddenly became one. Even more interestingly, the whole year we were doing fine until last December. Last December, out of the entire year, we suddenly started finding ticks on Cookie daily. It wasn’t really as cold as you’d expect for a…

by Jana Rade

Cookie’s Semi-Annual Wellness Exam

With all our dogs, we keep a schedule of two wellness exams every year. One in the spring, one in the fall. Last year, with JD’s passing and our struggle to make the tiny home inhabitable, we didn’t get around to the exam until before Christmas. It’s not the best timing for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that…

by Jana Rade

Are Convulsions or Seizures an Emergency?

Every first-time seizure should be treated as an emergency. If you have a dog diagnosed and medicated for epilepsy, they might still get a seizure from time to time. If the seizure passes quickly, given you already know what is going on, such an event might not be an emergency. That is a different situation if your dog starts convulsing…

by Jana Rade

Jana Rade

I am a graphic designer by day, dog health advocate, dog writer, member of the Dog Writers Association of America, and an award-winning author in my spare time. Jasmine, the Rottweiler of my life, was the largest female from her litter. We thought we were getting a healthy dog. Getting a puppy from a backyard breeder was our first mistake. Endless veterinary visits without a diagnosis or useful treatment later, I realized that I had to take Jasmine's health care into my own hands. I learned the hard way that simply seeing a vet is not always enough. There is more to finding a good vet than finding the closest clinic down the street. And, sadly, there is more to advocating for your dog's health than visiting a veterinarian. It should be enough, but it often is not. With Jasmine, it took five years to finally get a diagnosis for her initial issue. Unfortunately, other problems had snowballed for that in the meantime. Jasmine's health challenges became a crash course in understanding dog health issues and how to go about getting a proper diagnosis and treatment. I had to learn, and I had to learn fast. Helping others through my challenges and experience has become my mission and Jasmine's legacy. I now try to help people recognize and understand signs of illness in their dogs, how to work with their veterinarian, and when to seek a second opinion. My goal is to use 20 years of hard-earned experience to save others from the steep curve of having to learn things the hard way, as I did.

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