Pet News and Blogs

Yogurt, lasagne, meatloaf: If it’s not one thing, it’s another
(Cross-posted from my personal blog at GoodFaithRanch.com) A few weeks ago my 14-year-old Sheltie, Drew, started to increase his drinking and decrease his eating. Shortly after, my veterinarians confirmed my sad suspicion: My dog’s kidneys were shutting down. As deaths go, kidney failure isn’t a bad one. A couple years ago my father faced the [...]

The Drewbinator: ‘Quality of life’ is everything
IV fluids are amazing. Just a few days after I started giving Drew fluids at home he started feeling much better, and his lab values improved dramatically. Eating is still a problem, and I suspect it will become THE problem as time goes on. So far, all he’ll eat is cheese, yoghurt, slices of peaches [...]

Bagging it: The long, slow goodbye
This morning I woke up realizing that this blog and my 14-year-old Sheltie are in the same place: Dying gracefully, and not in any real hurry to go. The story on our blog moving you know already. The story of Drew … here you go: Drew, a/k/a Drewbie a/k/a The Drewbinator, came into my life [...]

Activity restricted to a leash: 10 days of hell
In the epitome of irony, I was writing an article about post-op care that includes the Dostoyevsky-spun line “Inadequate restriction of activity is the most common cause of post-operative complications and increased veterinary visits and costs” when I had to restrict my dog’s activity after a wee bit of his paw pad was removed last [...]

What’s YOUR favorite post of all time? Also: The e-collar conundrum
Picking up from the comments for an open thread … Since we’ll be around a bit longer, I’d like to know: What are your all-time favorite posts here? I have a few. Off the top of my head I like this one of mine: If only people knew what good breeders do And this one [...]

So … uh … hello again!
My bad. So … if you’re still out there, we’re still here. Not sure when we’ll be rolling over to Vetstreet now. We have some tech issues to sort out first. In the meantime, welcome back!

The boxes are packed, the van’s here, but before we go …
Tomorrow when you visit PetConnection.com, you’ll be re-directed to VetStreet, as I previously posted. But as we’ve been saying our good-byes, Christie came up with a brilliant idea: A Facebook page where you can follow all the work of your favorite PetConnection bloggers. We’ve named it: Petted-and-Vetted. All of the PetConnection bloggers have been made [...]

The pet lesson from Joplin: Microchips
Significant disaster planning prevented the nearly unimaginable June EF-5 tornado that flattened a 6-mile long and half-mile wide swath in Joplin, Mo., from being worse. The Missouri authorities had been fine-tuning their disaster response for years, and it paid off. What we learned about people being unwilling to leave their pets during Hurricane Katrina about [...]

Aggressive dog: What to do?
I guess I wasn’t quite done blogging here yet. My sister just called me with a dog problem, and I thought some of you might have some good advice for her. Susie lives in El Dorado, a rural area just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. None of the homes in the area have fenced [...]

Bowing out on a happy note
Twyla is home. We picked her up at noon today. Her meds have been tweaked–more furosemide, as I expected–and some potassium supplements. She sees the cardiologist on Wednesday, and he may make further adjustments. Thank you all for your support and kind words, not just during this episode but all through Bella’s last years and [...]