DOG HEALTH AND MEDICINE

With the practice of mobile veterinary medicine on the rise, Your Dog examines the pros and cons of mobile vets and traditional veterinary offices.

You know something is wrong because your dog is just not right. Shes not eating as well as usual, isnt as active, and appears to be suffering from an overall discomfort or malaise. What could it be?An x-ray or ultrasound reveals she has a stone, or calculus, in one of her ureters. A blocked ureter generally isnt as dire as a blocked uretha because each dog (like each person) has two, one coming from each kidney into the bladder, where urine is stored. Here are ways to diagnose and treat the condition.

Fifteen to 20 years ago, we didnt see stones in the ureter, says Tufts' Dr. Berg. Now we do. One theory as to why has to do with the fact that one of the diets fed to dogs to treat struvite stones, the most common type of urinary stone there is in dogs, causes the urine to become more acidic.

Lyme disease is transmitted via ticks, most commonly a type of tick known as the deer tick. Class signs of Lyme disease in a dog include loss of appetite, listlessness, and limping. Because testing positive for Lyme disease does not in itself mean a dog is sick, confirming a diagnosis is more tricky than just doing some blood work, particularly since some of the signs of the condition - loss of appetite, lethargy, even limping - are not terribly specific and can be signals of any number of conditions. Fortunately, treatment of most cases of canine Lyme disease is very simple: a three- to four-week course of antibiotics.

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Two or three years ago, I suffered debilitating pain from a urinary stone. There was no position in which I could get comfortable, and going to the bathroom provided false hope of any kind of relief from the pressure. One night, around midnight, after literally writhing in bed for a couple of hours, I went to the emergency room. They took a CT scan, located the stone, told me it was small enough to pass…

When it comes to excess copper build-up, while Bedlington terriers are the breed that comes to mind first, Dr. Heinze says, Dalmatians and Labs and a number of other breeds also may be prone. So theres some sort of genetic predisposition to being unable to get copper out of the liver, causing it to build up over time and kill liver cells. …

You notice that within the last day or two your dog is unable to urinate, or his urine stream is very weak. Or he makes frequent attempts to urinate and perhaps strains while doing so, or you can see blood in his urine. Get him to the vets office - now. If a dog (or person) cant urinate, toxins normally filtered from the body in the urine build up in the bloodstream, and he…

There are three main types of stones in the urinary tract that affect dogs, and while no breed is off the hook, some are more commonly affected.

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The word epilepsy doesnt get to the underlying problem - the reason for the seizures. If a reason cannot be identified, we call it idiopathic epilepsy. If you can identify it - perhaps its a brain tumor or a stroke, an infection in the brain, a metabolic problem, or even head trauma due to an accident - the dog has what is called secondary epilepsy. Treat the cause, and theoretically at least, the epilepsy will be easier to treat.

Some owners can sense a seizure coming on in their dogs (just as some dogs can sense it coming on in their owners). They see an aura of sorts, also called a prodrome - a pre-symptom symptom, if you will, wherein the dog may act upset and anxious and seek attention from his owner or, conversely, withdraw and hide. …