Articles with dog health advocacy

End of Life Dog Care: My Love…The Last Chapter

Penny Philippi shares her story of end of life care for her soulmate dog. It’s 2017 the New Year. I see many resolutions being made and people calling for a new start. For me, I am still recovering. Dec 2015 I lost my dog, Harry. He succumbed to cancer. He was My Love’s brother. They were rescued together from a…

by Jana Rade

Dogs Do Get Sick: You Can Do Everything Right and Have Things Go Wrong Anyway

When things go wrong, and a dog gets hurt or becomes ill, doubt and guilt often follow. What did I do wrong? What should I have done differently? Did I do this to my dog? Every time I’ve been asking myself this question. Sometimes the answer was, maybe. If I knew all I know now, could Jasmine’s health have been better?…

by Jana Rade

Symptoms to Watch for in Your Dog: Advanced Praise

What do you know, my first book, “Symptoms to Watch for in Your Dog”, is finally about ready to face the world. I am at the final stages of getting it out there. Right now I am working on getting advanced reviews and I already got a few very kind ones that I wanted to share. Reviews from veterinarians Symptoms…

by Jana Rade

Veterinary Cock-Ups: On Vets, Competence, Attention, Trust, and Misdiagnoses: Cookie’s Lumpectomy–The Unpublished Bit

What do you do when a veterinarian diagnoses a lump that doesn’t exist and misses one that is actually there? Veterinary cock-ups happen. There are poor outcomes due to things one cannot predict, there are mistakes, and then there is just not paying attention. When I wrote the article about Cookie’s lumpectomy, I left out some stuff because it was…

by Jana Rade

Another Note on Canine Lameness: It’s Like a Murder Mystery

As much as one would consider canine lameness to be one of the symptoms the cause of which can be easily identified, many times it’s nothing short of a mystery. A long time ago I have already learned that what you think you see is not always what you got. It was that way with Jasmine, it has been that…

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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