Is your dog licking their paws obsessively? Or perhaps your cat seems to be grooming nonstop? While occasional licking is entirely natural for pets, excessive licking might indicate an underlying problem. According to the ASPCA, compulsive licking is one of the top reasons pet owners seek veterinary advice. At Animal Hospital Southwest in Fort Worth, [...]
Animal Hospital Southwest has been open on Saturdays since I founded it over 40 years ago. At that time, I believed access to a veterinarian on your time was paramount to providing care that your pet needs. I was asked recently why we are open on Saturday and Sunday now. First, let me provide some [...]
Often pet parents ask me in a moment of exasperation: What can I do to stop the itching and get rid of these fleas for good?! There are a whole host of options here. Most, in my experience, don't work. All shampoos do nothing for the fleas that aren't currently on your pet. Most natural [...]
Winter weather can bring new challenges to pet ownership. There are a number of recommendations that the AVMA says are important to prepare you and your pet for the winter months. You can read through the recommendations with the link above, but I just wanted to point out why some of these make so much [...]
Anesthetic protocols have changed a lot over the years. Twenty years ago, the standard of care in veterinary medicine for surgical sedation was ketamine and telazol, depending on the species. Over the last decade and a half, we have moved to a more advanced set of anesthetic protocols. For non-surgical levels of sedation we typically [...]
When we mention preventive medicine, clients often think of vaccinations. Vaccinations are an important part of your pet’s preventive care needs, but it’s not the only part of your pet’s preventive care needs. Some people ask, why does the City of Fort Worth want me to get a yearly examination? Why shouldn’t I just go [...]
Hookworms are very dangerous to puppies and kittens. They feed on blood by attaching themselves to the intestinal wall, can make a young animal anemic and in some cases are even fatal. Hookworms are particularly dangerous to the very young because they can be transmitted in utero, through the mother’s colostrum, and through ingestion or [...]
Tapeworms are the most common parasite to be observed by my clients, as they are one of the few that are visible to the naked eye. Tapeworm segments can often be seen in fresh feces or hanging from an infected dog or cat’s anus. Like many other parasites, tapeworms have primary and secondary hosts. The [...]
Someone recently asked me why we give puppy and kitten shots the way that we do. “What’s the point in giving them shots every 3 weeks?” Just like humans, puppies receive some conferred immunity to illnesses through the colostrum. Colostrum is produced in the mammaries in the late stages of pregnancy and the first few [...]
We are all aware that obesity has become a problem in the United States, particularly over the last twenty years. The number of Americans that are classified as overweight but not obese has remained essentially unchanged, but the number classified as obese has risen by over twenty percentage points. There are a lot of different [...]
