Tag Archives: veterinary

Every morning at about 5 am, the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center’s Emergency Service sends out a list of all pets admitted to the hospital overnight. Recently, one admission caught my attention: a small dog admitted with a fractured neck bone because of an altercation with a revolving door. Fortunately, the fracture was not near his spinal cord. The little guy was in lots of pain and his treatment protocol called for activity restriction, rest and pain medications. He is on the mend, but this shocking story made me wonder about other uniquely urban hazards that might impact the health of your dog.

Last winter, Martina Navratilova announced she had been diagnosed with both breast cancer and throat cancer. Unfortunately, the simultaneous occurrence of two different types of cancers in a person is not a rare occurrence, with 2% to 17% percent of people with cancer developing multiple types. The same situation occurs in both dogs and cats, and I have detailed some specific patients in prior blogposts. In this blogpost, I’ll expand on the occurrence of more than one cancer at a time in veterinary patients.

The dog is the first animal domesticated by humans, and we have done a brilliant job creating a variety of dog breeds to meet our needs. Selective breeding, which began roughly 9,000 years ago and expanded dramatically during the Victorian era, has resulted in dogs specialized for herding, hunting, retrieving, ratting and companionship. We also created a single species ranging in size from two to 200 pounds. While veterinarians love the variety of dogs we care for, the challenge for us is to understand all the variations that make up normal dogs in order to provide excellent veterinary care. Here are a few of the issues in medical care for species with a 100x range in size.

Veterinarians at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center bandage patient legs to hold intravenous catheters in place, immobilize a fracture so it can heal or to cover a wound to keep

The Schwarzman Animal Medical Center’s animal ER saw nearly 20,000 pet visits in 2022. Many of those patients were poisoned. Given Easter is around the corner, lilies and chocolate come to mind