Being a cat veterinarian is like being a pediatrician. We can’t ask our patients what’s wrong. We have to figure it out. And nowhere is the role of a cat owner more important than at a veterinarian’s office, where a good history can sometimes mean the difference between life and death. Veterinarians are faced with a variety of diagnostic challenges…
As a cats-only practitioner, I don’t mind when people say that I’m looking down in the mouth, because the feline mouth is fascinating. Cats use their mouths for a lot of things – eating, drinking, grooming, and communication. Although cats breathe mainly through their nose, the mouth provides an additional passageway for air to enter the lungs. Cats are true…
I have a funny story and memorable photos from a case I saw a while back. A cat named Hot Dog Stallard. When Jennifer Stallard brought her 16-pound orange bruiser of a cat into my office and introduced me to “Hot Dawg”, it was clear that Ms. Stallard had come to the Big Apple from a place firmly south of…
We jokingly call them “crazy cat ladies”, but it’s no laughing matter. Animal hoarding is a pathological behavior that causes terrible suffering. Grosse Pointe, MI – A woman who exposed her two teenage children to the excrement from 42 cats, three dogs and six birds kept in her Grosse Pointe Farms home has been sentenced to two years of probation.…
Of all of the infectious disease that cats can acquire, feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is perhaps the most devastating. FIP is a viral disease caused by a type of virus called a coronavirus. Most cats are exposed to, and become infected with, the coronavirus as kittens. At worst, kittens may get mild diarrhea. Many show no clinical signs at all. …
“Tom”, an 8-month old male domestic shorthaired kitten, presented to my hospital with a complaint of lethargy and unusual ingestive behavior. According to his owners Pat Galloway and Peter Webb, the normally rambunctious kitten had become lethargic over the past two days, spending most of his time sleeping. The cat’s appetite had markedly decreased, although he was still gaining weight…
It happened 26 years ago, but my memory of the incident remains vivid. With my sights set on becoming a veterinarian, I was working as a volunteer at a local veterinarian’s office in Gainesville, Florida, to obtain that all-important “real life” experience. It was a weekday, and the first appointment of the afternoon was a woman who was bringing in…