Tag Archives: anemia

When I was a kid, our family dog ate the edges of my mother’s beautiful living room drapes. Because she loved that dog more than her children, she blamed us for touching the drapes with sticky fingers. In her mind, the food residue on the drapes enticed the dog to eat them and thus, the dog, but not the children, were forgiven. Fast forward to the present and, as a veterinarian at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center, I routinely encounter patients who eat items with no nutritional value, a condition called “pica.” If you follow us on Facebook and Instagram, you’ve seen the dramatic x-rays of animals that have eaten items like a string of lights, an airtag, rocks, magnets, an ethernet cable and all manner of other non-food items. Today’s blog takes a closer look at pica—what it is, why it happens, and why it matters.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a stray, flea-infested black kitten who found her way to the ER at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center just in time for

August 17th is National Black Cat Appreciation Day. This is a much-needed holiday as black cats have been unfairly maligned since the Middle Ages. In a Papal Bull issued in 1232, Pope Gregory IX damned black cats as the incarnation of Satan. Several centuries later, another Pope, Innocent VIII, linked cats, the devil and witches by writing, “The cat is the devil’s favorite animal and idol of all witches.” At the time of the Salem witch trials in colonial Massachusetts, witches were thought to transform into black cats who could roam the countryside and cause mischief.  These superstitions have led to “black cat bias,” a term applied to the negative feelings people have about black cats, compared to cats with other coat colors. Black cat bias may also lead to longer shelter stays for black cats relinquished to an animal shelter. Today’s blogpost will focus on one of these unfortunate black cats, a five-week-old, flea-infested black kitten, brought to AMC by a Good Samaritan. This little waif was covered with so many fleas, she had become anemic. The photo accompanying the blogpost shows her in her ICU incubator with an IV catheter in her arm for her blood transfusion.

Through the centuries, medical practitioners have ascribed many functions to the spleen. In the Middle Ages, physicians thought the spleen produced black bile, the cause of melancholy. In later years,

Most people know the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is charged with approving prescription drugs for people and all types of animals. What would surprise many pet owners