Category: Veterinary medicine
The White Coat Effect in Animals: Reducing Fear in the Vet Clinic
Fear during veterinary visits is a problem for everyone involved. While everyone wants less of it, there is limited evidence to support any interventions right now.
Heartworms, fear-mongering, and perilous advice. The bad recommendations of Dr. Peter Dobias regarding heartworm disease in dogs.
A veterinarian is claiming to expose the pharmaceutical industry by helping you avoid parasite-preventing medications. His message is based on a dangerous misunderstanding of heartworm biology, carries several contradictory claims, and will lead to some serious risk for your dogs if followed. But on the plus side, if you’re a heartworm, this is great news!
Alternative Flea Control Products
Every natural pet health website has their recommendations for flea treatments that don’t use harsh chemicals. The evidence for their claims is nonexistent. It’s appropriate that they’re talking about parasitic organisms, but I don’t think they see the irony.
The Great Outdoors (Debate)
What are the health risks of letting your cat roam free?
Dog breath and stinky studies: Do pets need to be knocked out for dental care?
Most professional veterinary organizations recommend anesthesia to ensure thorough dental care for pet dogs and cats. Despite this, some companies are trying to mislead the pet-owning public by claiming they have high quality evidence showing they provide the same benefit without the risks. Their research smells worse than old chihuahua breath.
Are Rattlesnake Vaccines for Dogs Effective?
A company is now selling a rattlesnake venom vaccine. How much can we trust it when it comes to the health and safety of our dogs? Right now, it's too early to tell.
Alternative Medicine Is Infiltrating Veterinary Continuing Education
My friend Carmen Czachor is a science-based veterinarian practicing in Port Angeles, Washington. She has alerted me to a disturbing development that she fears will “put veterinary medicine back in the dark ages.” The Washington State Department of Health is contemplating a rule change in the regulations requiring continuing education for veterinarians. Current requirements are for 30 hours of continuing education every...
FDA & CDC find raw pet food unpalatable
The FDA recently announced it would send field staff out to collect samples of commercially-manufactured raw dog and cat food. The samples will be analyzed for Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and E. coli, all of which have been found in raw pet food, in the animals who eat it, in their feces, on their bodies after eating it, in the areas they inhabit,...
New Developments in Acupuncture: Turtles and Motion-Style Treatments
Note: Lest you think that SBM is becoming “turtles all the way down,” let me apologize for the duplication and explain that I had already written this right before I read Mark Crislip’s Turtle Agony article on Friday. My focus is different, and turtles were only a small part of my article, so I decided to leave the turtles in....
Animal Therapy
Animal-assisted therapy is a huge topic: almost 1500 hits using those terms alone. There is no way I am going to cover all of them and do them justice. Instead I am going to cherry pick, er, I mean, select references of interest to illustrate issues surrounding animals in the hospital. Sometimes I get the impression that readers of the blog expect...