Keeping your dog up-to-date on vaccinations protects them from several devastating illnesses, including rabies, parvovirus, distemper, bordetella, and more. Unfortunately, no vaccine will protect your canine companion from every disease they may encounter throughout their life. And while modern vaccines are highly effective, there is always a minuscule risk of vaccine failure. This means that, despite your best efforts, there's no way to ensure that your furry friend will never get sick.

Despite what you may think, yeast infections, NOT ear mites, are the primary cause of ear infections in dogs. Dogs love to get yeast infections in their ears. Most veterinarians can likely count the number of dogs with ear mites they’ve seen during their practice career on two hands.

Diarrhea - let's just agree upfront that this is an unpleasant topic. Unfortunately, it's one that we see in pets at veterinary clinics every day, and while the root cause can be relatively harmless, that's not always the case. This blog post will look at what may be causing your dog's diarrhea and how serious the implications are in each case.

National Pet Poison Prevention Week takes place this year from March 21st through March 27th. Aimed at educating pet parents about some of the most common things that are poisonous to pets, this week is a fantastic opportunity to brush up on your knowledge and keep your furry family member safe.

As veterinarians, we’ve noticed that many people tend to think that rabies is a thing of the past, but, unfortunately, that’s not the reality. According to the CDC, approximately 5,000 animal rabies cases are reported annually, with more than 90 percent of those occurring in wildlife. So while dogs and cats are no longer getting rabies as much as they did in the mid-1900s, the principal hosts in the U.S. today are raccoons, skunks, bats, and foxes.

This article was written in response to the June 10th, 2021 report of the 34 pets (33 dogs and one cat) entering the United States through O’Hare Airport from Azerbaijan, as one of the dogs in the group tested positive for rabies in Pennsylvania. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has launched a multi-state public health investigation after at least 12 people were exposed to the rabid dog imported from overseas. The location of the other imported pets has not been released.

As much as we wish they could, dogs can’t communicate pain, illness, or discomfort with words or even woofs. Instead, changes we notice in their demeanor, eating habits, or shifts in their routine hopefully make us stop and take notice of a potential problem. Dogs instinctively avoid revealing that something is wrong, so it’s up to the dog owner to stay consistently alert and spot illness early to avoid complications.