Dog care, symptoms, health issues, and dog health advocacy from an owner's perspective. In loving memory of Jasmine.
For an infectious agent to result in a sick dog, there are two requirements — exposure and failure of the immune system to thwart the infection. Crowded places provide high probability of exposure. Stress can be one of the circumstances that weaken the immune response. To learn how stress increases susceptibility to infection, read The Function of Cortisol: What Happens…
The most common cause of bad breath in dogs is dental disease. Even more serious conditions, however, can be behind your dog’s foul breath. The more severely your dog’s mouth smells, the bigger and more urgent the problem. Did you know that bad breath can be caused by cancer? Thank you, Amy Kennedy, for sharing Lexy’s story. Lexy’s story Lexy…
Let’s address gradual unexplained weight gain in dogs. The potential causes are different than when the weight gain happens suddenly. How fast something happens is an important part of the picture. The more acute the onset, the more urgently you need to seek answers. With weight gain, the faster it happens, the closer you are to an emergency situation, particularly…
We all know that vomiting is bad, but many dog owners don’t understand exactly how much damage severe or prolonged vomiting can do to a dog’s body. Dehydration Severe vomiting causes direct loss of water from the body but equally important is the fact that it prevents dogs from holding down and absorbing water that they try to drink to…
Cats lick themselves all the time; they are big on self-grooming. It’s when they stop that you need to worry. Dogs, though, are not like that. That is not to say a dog won’t ever lick themselves—sure they do. Some of that has to do with keeping themselves clean too. However, when they lick themselves incessantly, there is a problem…