Category Archives: Research

The Schwarzman Animal Medical Center recently published its 2025 Impact Report. This annual report highlights the work and milestones achieved here at 510 East 62nd Street over the previous year. Some of the most impactful events of 2025 have already been featured in prior blogposts – AMC’s four-year, 83,000 square-foot, and $125 million hospital transformation and a listing of AMC’s Usdan Institute for Animal Health Education’s 2025 webinars to help you start the New Year on a healthy note for your pet. One section of the Impact Report that I have not included in prior blogposts is AMC’s 2025 research portfolio. That scholarly engagement will be the subject of this blogpost.

A recent article in the New York Times described a number of research studies on “gifted word learning” dogs that can associate spoken words with objects, sometimes after very little exposure to the object. But what about cats? Do they learn language in a similar way? In this blogpost, I’ll explore what science tells us about how cats understand human language, how this differs from dogs, and whether it’s possible to teach your cat words.

While pets are nearly perfect, one thing they could improve is their lifespan. Wouldn’t it be great to bring home a dog or cat as a child and have that pet with you for the rest of your life? That question led me to investigate what factors influence how long our pets live—and what we might be able to do to keep them with us just a bit longer. What I found is the subject of this blogpost.

The nature versus nurture debate has captivated scientists since the 1800s, when Gregor Mendel cultivated peas in his garden while Charles Darwin explored the world aboard the HMS Beagle. This enduring discussion centers on the relative importance of genetics (nature) and environment (nurture) in shaping an individual's traits and behaviors. In my last blogpost, I wrote about genetic mutations in pets. These mutations—like those causing stumpy tails in Manx cats, extra toes in polydactyl cats, or drug sensitivities in pets with the AMC transporter mutation—demonstrate how genetics shape our animals’ appearance and health needs. But what about nurture? How does the environment our pets share with us impact their well-being?

Any medical or surgical procedure carries a risk of a complication such as an infection. Infections in human patients occur in about 4% of hospitalized patients. The number of infections in hospitalized dogs and cats is not well studied. However, studies of hospital-related infections help physicians and veterinarians improve the quality of care they provide to their patients. Today’s blogpost will talk about infections associated with intravenous (IV) catheters and how AMC is working to make them less common.