EVERYDAY DOGCARE

Heres the simple truth: dogs dont actually need to be bathed. The oils on their skin and hair help retain moisture, and the scents they accumulate in their day-to-day excursions alert other dogs to where they have been and what they have seen. Its an important aspect of the canine communication process. …

While bathing a dog with a normal, healthy coat of skin is not strictly necessary, if your dog has skin disease, bathing can be a very important part of treatment. Indeed, says Andrea Lam, DVM, a veterinary dermatologist at the Cummings School, dogs with most skin diseases absolutely do need to be bathed to help maintain healthy skin function. …

Okay, so vacuuming Rosie didnt go so well. Dont blame me. Tufts veterinary dermatologist Lluis Ferrer, DVM, suggested it as a way of helping to keep the house free of all the hairs that come from shedding. (See the story that starts on page 11.) I knew Franklin the border collie, an even bigger shedder than Rosie, wouldnt go for it. He always dives for cover the second he hears the motor. But I…

Fortunately, the problems arising from a dogs shedding are all the owners, not the dogs. Shedding is not an indicator of health issues, Dr. Ferrer says. Even with a lot of shedding, if your dog retains a normal coat and you dont see areas of hair loss that lead to bald patches, you dont need to consult a vet.

Part of the reason it is difficult to pin down which dogs will shed more - and when - is that dogs coats are not like those of wild animals after thousands of years of natural evolution, which could conceivably lead to predictable shedding patterns. They have been selected by man through controlled breeding only over the last couple of centuries. Specifically, humans have intensely bred dogs with particular types of coats to suit their…

During these dog days of summer, advice youve heard before bears repeating: never just run into the store for a few minutes while your dog waits in the car with the windows closed. When its 80 degrees outside, not a terribly hot day at all, the temperature inside the vehicle rises to …

In these precarious economic times, even dogs have taken a hit. From 2006 to 2011, the proportion of dog-owning households making no trips to the vet at all increased by 8 percent. That translated to almost one in five households with a dog not making at least one vet visit in 2011. Close to 30 percent of those making no visit to the vet said they simply couldnt afford it. A significant number took their dogs to the veterinarian only if they were sick, not for routine checkups.

Both Ann Smits of Hyattsville, Maryland, and Kathy Holmes of Milton, Wisconsin, took us to task for showing a photo of a dog sticking his head and paws out the window during a car ride in our March issue. It is not safe for a dog to ride unrestrained in a car, Ms. Smits wrote. …

A lot of truths about dogs have been making the rounds for decades, sometimes longer. Theyve been around for so long, in fact, that many people take them as scientifically proven facts, when upon close inspection they turn out not to be true at all. Its time to set the record straight. …

A lot of people used to think of the animal shelter as a sad place, says Tufts veterinarian Emily McCobb, DVM. They wouldnt want to go. The animals needed a home, and it felt bad just to see them.

As a kid growing up outside of Portland, Oregon, I didnt have a dog, says Emily McCobb, DVM, the director of the Shelter Medicine Program at Tufts. But my grandmother and aunt did. And in my family, dogs were outside animals, so at Thanksgiving, when extended family came over, everybody would be inside eating dinner and Id be outside playing ball with the dogs.

Q I will be going on a consultancy for about 35 days. Ive never left my dog, a 9-year-old Border Collie, for more than two days, and she got upset when I did.