Category Archives: Vet Life

Valentine’s Day is full of sweet traditions—chocolate, flowers, and gifts—but some of the most common holiday staples can become serious pet hazards. Pet insurance companies don’t just help pet families afford veterinary care—they’re also a rich source of data to help us understand how often certain illnesses and injuries occur. While insurance data is not collected with the scientific rigor of a research study, it can provide a useful snapshot of pet care trends. In this blogpost, I’ll look at what pet insurance claim data suggests about common health issues in dogs and cats, and what it may reveal about Valentine’s Day hazards.

This blogpost marks a personal milestone: my 1000th blogpost since I started blogging in 2008. Over that time, much has changed—in our country, at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center and in veterinary medicine. To mark this achievement, I want to reflect on some of those changes and on what continues to matter the most.

Lumps in and under the skin are a very common problem veterinarians are asked to assess. I’m not only saying this as a cancer specialist—skin lumps are common in primary care practice as well. According to a 2025 Clinician’s Brief Survey, primary care veterinarians evaluate an average of 2.7 masses each day in the clinic. What happens next—once a veterinarian examines a patient with a mass—is the subject of this blogpost.

The winter holiday season is the setting for Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale The Little Match Girl. The story features a child, alone and outdoors in the freezing cold, sustained by visions of warmth, delicious food and a loving family. Like many fairy tales, The Little Match Girl does not have a happy ending. The tale of Esme the cat—told in the blogpost below—is very much like the story of The Little Match Girl, except Esme’s story will have a happy ending.

The week of October 12th is the annual celebration of veterinary technicians known as “National Veterinary Technician Week.” This year’s theme—“Paths to Success: Shining a Light on Credentialed Veterinary Technician Stars”—recognizes the many routes to professional growth within this vital career. Today’s blogpost will highlight the pathways beyond providing nursing care available for technician success at AMC.