DOG HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Since antibiotics came into common medical practice in the late 1940s, they have eradicated countless bacterial infections that used to routinely kill people long before they reached old age. They are indeed wonder drugs. But today, antibiotic resistance - a weakening of these drugs power to do away with harmful bacteria and eliminate sometimes deadly infections - is more and more becoming a threat not only to human health but also the health of our pets.

You know you should be assessing your dogs body condition score to make sure shes not too heavy by looking at her from above so you can easily see and then feel her waist and an abdominal tuck. You should also be able to feel her ribs very easily when you lightly run your fingers over her sides. But the body condition score assesses only your dogs fat stores. What about her muscle condition score? Your dog can be just the right weight, or even overweight, yet have too little muscle.

When to euthanize is a very deeply spiritual decision, says Alicia Karas, DVM, who heads the Tufts Pet Loss Hotline and therefore knows that people often call in not only once their dog has died but also when they have to make the decision about whether to put their pet down. Compassion is called for when it comes to hearing people out about this, she says.

But a new Tufts study led by veterinary nutritionist Deborah Linder, DVM, MS, DACVN, and colleagues just published in the American Journal of Infection Control provides evidence that those visited by therapy dogs - especially the elderly and those with compromised immune systems - are put at risk by a lack of rules about a therapy dogs vaccination status and other health parameters. Likewise, lax rules potentially compromise dogs safety.

Our small cockapoo Bailey always sleeps on the bed with us. And he always ends up on my pillow, curled around my head with breaths from his little nose going right into my ear. Curiously, in the middle of the night, I almost always wake to find him furiously licking my face, especially my eye sockets and scalp. Once he did it so long and hard that he scratched my cornea. If I have a nick from shaving, he will literally lick it until the scab is gone. These episodes can last as long as 30 minutes. Is he grooming me as his master and trying to please me? Whatever the reason, its so cute that I never cut him off. Its good to be loved. Hes a great dog and tends to my every emotional need. I should note that he doesnt ever do this to my wife. Whats going on here?

Most dogs love car rides, so much so that even though were not supposed to let them stick their head out the window because gravel can fly up at their faces (and also because it means theyre not secured safely in place), many owners take the risk. They allow their pets the joy of looking around and feeling the wind on their faces as the auto rolls along. Happy dogs looking out car windows as their owners chauffeur them around are a pretty common sight, in fact.

The man was a Korean war veteran, pretty elderly, but his PTSD was still very severe, says Eric Richman, MSW, LICSW. Thats why his Labrador retriever was both a service dog and a therapy dog. The dogs presence helped keep him calm and able to go about his business. So when his pet became sick - bloody diarrhea - his anxiety level started escalating rapidly. Thats when the dogs veterinarian asked me to step in."

Dogs, like people, experience all kinds of pain because of conditions that range from arthritis to neurological disorders, and their owners want to do what they can to relieve their discomfort, and sometimes out-and-out suffering. Can laser therapy help? The answer is not a straightforward yes or no.

My 12-year-old Scottish terrier, who has been ill for over a year, received a diagnosis of Cushings Disease in the spring. Her doctor did not prescribe any pharmaceuticals for her. Is there a homeopathic treatment available that will lessen her symptoms?

There are six types of cancer that make up the majority of malignancies striking older dogs: lymphoma (cancer of the lymph nodes), osteosarcoma (bone cancer), mammary cancer, mast cell tumors (mast cells are immune cells found all over the body), soft tissue sarcoma (cancer that takes hold in connective tissue like muscles and nerves), and one called hemangiosarcoma. Hemangiosarcoma, with its grim prognosis, may be the diagnosis a dog owner least wants to hear. Chris Stickell of Monkton, Maryland, has now heard it twice - first with one of her golden retrievers, and then with another one from the same line, 10-year-old Bailey.

Gloria Mooney is worried. Her dog, Sparky, all of a sudden began to have trouble opening his eyes. It was not completely out of the blue. Weeks earlier, he had what she calls a skin breakout, with ulcers (open sores) appearing all over his body, including inside his mouth, his nostrils, eyes, and so on. Those areas were breaking and failing to heal. Sparkys veterinarian assumed some kind of allergy was responsible for the problem and prescribed steroids and other medications, which cleared up the open wounds everywhere but in the corneas of Sparkys eyes. The cornea is the clear outer surface of the eye, and problems there are serious. The cornea accounts for more than two thirds of the eyes optical power.

Weve talked in these pages about the famous Japanese dog Hachiko, who went to the train station every day to wait for his owner to come home from work - even for years after the owner died, until his own passing. The dog, who became a national symbol of loyalty in Japan, was found to have had four meat skewers in his stomach (think kabob sticks) at the time of his death. They didnt kill him - cancer did - but they could have.