Dog care, symptoms, health issues, and dog health advocacy from an owner's perspective. In loving memory of Jasmine.
An obvious diagnosis might not be the right diagnosis. Don’t let your vet insist on a diagnosis based on the first thing they might stumble upon when trying to figure out what’s wrong with your dog. Even if it might make sense at first. If your dog isn’t getting better with treatment, either the diagnosis or the treatment is wrong.…
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…
You can’t see splenic tumors coming–or can you? Too often, splenic tumors pass under the radar until the dog collapses as a result of severe internal bleeding. My brother-in-law had a dog die to hemangiosarcoma a couple of years ago. The prognosis with this cancer is generally poor but on top of that, their vet insisted it was a urinary…
Inflammatory bowel disease is a syndrome caused by an immune reaction to chronic irritation of the GI tract. The cause is poorly understood but the result is immune cells infiltrating the tissues of the gastrointestinal tissues. The common theorized causes are chronic parasites, bacterial infections, or food allergies. Symptoms can vary in severity but commonly consist of chronic vomiting, diarrhea…
Illness can get complicated and diagnosis such cases is a process. Sometimes your veterinarian tries a treatment, and it might work even though it is unclear what’s wrong. And sometimes, the immune system and the body’s healing potential end up having to do the job. Sometimes you don’t know. All is well that ends well. Thank you, Julia Davis, for…