Subscriber Only

• New to the “Top 10 Toxins” List for Dogs: Recreational Drugs
• Short Takes
• Canine Vaccine Hesitancy Can Put Your Dog — and You — at Serious Risk
• Veterinary Chiropractic Goes Mainstream
• How Well Can You Read Your Dog?
• Listen Up! You Can Make Your Deaf Dog a Lot Safer — and Happier!
• How to Give the Vet a Proper Diet History
• Dear Doctor

For the very first time, recreational drugs have made the ASPCA’s top 10 list of toxins for dogs and other pets. This includes not only marijuana-based products but also hallucinogenic mushrooms and cocaine, although marijuana makes up the lion’s share.

Something’s terribly wrong with your dog, and you take her to the off-hours emergency clinic. But how long will you sit there before she gets seen?

If you haven’t yet met a dog named Cookie, Honey, or Mochi (a Japanese dessert), you will soon. One in nine dogs is now given a food-themed name, according to a database of more than 50,000 pet names. It makes sense. Foods are delicious, and we find our dogs deliciously captivating. Here are the top 10 food names given to dogs in 2023, according to the 2023 Pet Names Study released by trustedhousesitters.com.

In developing countries where vaccination against rabies is not readily available for dogs, thousands of people die of rabies every year because the disease can be transmitted from canines to humans. In the U.S., only a handful of people contract rabies from their dogs each year. But that could change.

“There’s a patient I’m seeing right now, an 8-pound Chihuahua who has horrible neck pain,” says Alicia Karas, DVM, “but in one session I can turn him from a hunched, tense mess to a head-up, tail-wagging dog. He just unfolds. When you see an animal transform from miserable and quivering to relaxed and happy, it means everything. I can give a dog pain medication,” she says, “but imagine being able to do that with your hands.”

Are you readily able to understand the expressions your dog makes? The answer is more likely to be “yes” if your dog has a plain face of a single color rather than a face with more than one color or a lot of markings. So say the results of a study of more than 100 dogs and their people called “What Is Written on a Dog’s Face?”

Unless a dog is still a puppy, most veterinary visits tend to include little to no discussion about diet. Sometimes, however, what a dog eats becomes of paramount importance, perhaps because she has put on excess weight that could compromise her health, mobility, and even her lifespan. Or maybe she has developed an allergy that the vet suspects might be a food allergy, and it needs to be determined which ingredient could be causing the allergic reaction.

You know that you’re not supposed to pet a service dog without obtaining permission first from the dog’s person. The dog is working and could be distracted by your attention.

Q: Are dogs lactose intolerant? My dog gets tiny bits of cheese for doing  tricks, but I wonder if I’ve been rewarding him with the wrong food.

Q: Why does my dog always take her food far from her bowl before eating it?

As many as one in 10 dogs is deaf in one or both ears, according to the American Kennel Club. And many dogs that are not completely deaf don’t hear as well as a dog should. People often assume it’s only white dogs that can be deaf, but a dog doesn’t have to be all white, or even mostly white, to be genetically predisposed. The merle gene, present in collies, dappled dachshunds, American foxhounds, and other colorful breeds, increases the odds for deafness. So does the piebald gene, found in Samoyeds, greyhounds, beagles, and Dalmatians.