DOG HEALTH AND MEDICINE

The weather is warm, and the air is moist—like right now in many parts of the country—and your dog has started excessively grooming her hind quarters. In fact, she may have been licking, biting, and chewing to the point that she has taken off hair and maybe even some skin, leaving a raw, red area—a hot spot. Worse still, the spot may look inflamed, ooze pus, and bleed intermittently.

The molecules in a dog’s urine have a unique fingerprint, and researchers are finding that it can be used to detect—in minutes—whether a dog has cancer. There are blood tests for canine cancer, but they can be expensive, and you have to wait for a lab to come back with the results. Moreover, the results might be only about 60 percent accurate. With a urine test, researchers are finding results that are more than 90 percent accurate.

Inoculation against a bacterial disease called leptospirosis is not considered a core vaccine, meaning you should discuss with your vet whether your particular dog is at risk. The offending bacteria particularly thrive in relatively warm climates with high average rainfall.

A female wire-haired pointer, the tenth most popular dog breed, has only a 1 percent chance of getting cancer. But if she is spayed before she is a year old, her risk for cancer of the lymph nodes shoots up to more than 10 percent. A male mastiff has a 6 percent chance of developing a joint disorder, but that risk rises to 21 percent if he is castrated before he is one.

Dogs seem happiest when they stink. Who among us hasn’t had—or at least seen—a dog happily rolling her body back and forth over something positively rank?

Q: I’ve noticed a little cauliflower-shaped bump on my 12-year-old dog’s forehead, between her right ear and eye. I think it has been bleeding periodically because sometimes it appears dark in color as if blood has dried. I know I have to take her to the doctor and am scared. Is it cancer?

For every four inches over average height, a person’s baseline risk for developing cancer rises by 10 percent, according to research conducted by Leonard Nunney, PhD, a professor in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the University of California, Riverside. There are a number of possible reasons, but much of the thinking behind the finding is that within any one species, the bigger you are, the more cells you have, and the more chance for them to mutate into cancerous forms when dividing and multiplying. Thus, if your baseline risk for cancer is 20 percent, for instance, it goes up 10 percent to a 22 percent risk if you’re 4 inches above average height.

People who need an upgrade in their pacemaker have started donating their out-of-date but still perfectly usable models to veterinary school practices for use in dogs. That considerably lowers the price for a canine pet who needs a pacemaker because his heart’s electrical rhythm is off. He may be weak, prone to sudden collapses, and at risk for sudden death. 

It’s true that certain medical conditions are more prevalent in particular dog breeds. Dachshunds are more likely to have problems with the discs in their spinal column than other dogs. A Yorkshire terrier is more likely to have a collapsing trachea, and a cavalier King Charles spaniel is more likely to develop a kind of heart disease called mitral valve disease. But a new study looking at more than 27,000 canines enrolled in the Dog Aging project—roughly half purebred pets and the other half mixed-breeds—found that the pedigreed pets were no more likely to have medical conditions in general over the course of their lives than the mutts.

People tend to shut down when the veterinarian says their dog is fat or obese. They take it as an affront, often interpreting those words to mean they are being told they are irresponsible pet owners.

There are essentially two types of drugs for dogs who experience high enough levels of anxiety that behavior modification techniques alone don’t keep them feeling calm and secure. One type is often referred to as “in the moment” medication. It means the dog just needs a short-acting drug to help him in particular situations that unnerve him to the point that he becomes aggressive or shows other signs of extreme stress, like cowering or hiding. Such situations might include thunderstorms or having to be near other dogs, say, at the veterinarian’s office. The other type of medication is longer-acting, working around the clock to take the edge off a dog’s chronic anxiety. It operates “in the background,” so to speak.

The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but a dog’s feet are often the windows to her health. Liver disease, allergies, and certain autoimmune conditions are just a few of the illnesses that play out on the feet of our canine pets. Here’s a quick guide to some of the most common diseases to strike dogs on their feet, how to recognize them, and how to treat them.