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Urgent: Covid Update
Dear Picture Hills Pet Hospital Clients, It has come to our attention that one of our staff members has tested positive for COVID-19. While we wear masks and do our best to stay 6 feet away from others when possible, our job requires us to spend much of our days in very close contact with…
COVID-19 Pandemic Update
COVID-19 Pandemic Update Late June updates Hello again from the Picture Hills Pet Hospital Team! We are now closed on Saturdays. We have expanded our appointment schedule Monday thru Friday to help accommodate for this loss of appointment times. For clients with weekday scheduling conflicts, we are happy to offer complimentary day-boarding, and can make…
Picture Hills Pet Hospital Restores Hope for Dog with Severe Allergies
After years of struggling with treating her skin, Roxie’s family had lost hope. They had been told their only option was to keep her on prednisone until they came to terms with putting her to sleep. When Roxie came to board with us, she was a shell of the dog she once was. I happened…
Suffering in Silence: The Dangers of Dirty Teeth
You take Fido in for his yearly exam, expecting an exceptional bill of health. After all, you have been working so well on keeping him fit and trim! Then it happens. Your vet drops the dental bomb on you. She tells you Fido has early periodontal disease, a painful infection of the teeth, gums, and…
“It’s Not a Toomah”—Or Is It?
Nearly every dog gets a little lumpier as he gets older. Most of these masses are just a benign part of the skin’s aging process, but among the fatty tumors and cysts lurk some dangerous cancers. So how do we find the wolf hiding in sheep’s clothing, so to speak? You are the…
The Cost of Companionship
Growing up, I remember being told to NEVER ask or talk about other people’s financial situations. This is just one social rule (among many others) that I have to break on a daily basis as a veterinarian. Nobody likes to talk about the “business” of medicine, but it is a reality. Medical care carries with…
Worried about the canine flu? So are we.
The influenza virus has a long history of scaring people. Flu pandemics killed millions throughout the 17th and 18th century, and the global war path of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic still haunts us today. Luckily, modern sanitation practices and antibiotics have brought the mortality rate down to less than 0.1% in developed countries, but…
That Awkward Pet Food Discussion
As a veterinarian with a special interest in nutrition, I will admit that I take your pet food choices WAY too personally. It’s just that nutrition is probably the single most important factor under our control in optimizing a pet’s health. Don’t get me wrong, parasite control and vaccines are very important. But obesity is…
Therapeutic “Lasers” and Chronic Pain
Fun fact: The first AustinPowers came out almost 20 years ago!!! Now–onto the science. Photobiomodulation (Say that 10 times fast). This big fancy word describes what happens at the cellular level when a therapeutic laser is applied to live tissues like skin, muscles, and joints. It means changing the processes going on inside living things via light…
Ouch! The not-so-universal language of pain
“There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery” –Charles Darwin A veterinarian is a jack of all trades. Among all of the medical, dental, and surgical roles we fill, one makes us very different than our counterparts in human healthcare: the role of animal…