It's a wonderful thing to give, and we all have good intentions when shopping for truly special gifts for our loved ones. You may have visions of one you love opening a beautiful box with an adorable kitten inside, or of covering their eyes and leading them into a room where a puppy wearing a big bow is waiting. We aren't to blame—we have these joyful images lingering from our own childhood as well as from movies. It may feel like we are giving the gift of unconditional love, especially ...

We recently discussed when NOT to induce vomiting after your pet has eaten certain harmful items. Today we’ll look at common situations where you should induce vomiting (how-to instructions below). Rodent poisons often contain anti-coagulant (blood-thinning) drugs such as coumarin or warfarin; newer products contain bromethalin, a neurotoxin that is equally dangerous. If a pet ingests an anti-coagulant, or even eats an animal that has consumed it, life-threatening internal bleeding may occur. While symptoms typically take 5 to 7 days to develop, they need to be headed off by inducing ...

Thanks to my good friend Dr. Karen Becker at Mercola.com for this incredibly important article! By Dr. Becker I have some encouraging news to share about rabies vaccines, or more specifically, how pets with out-of-date vaccinations that are exposed to a rabid animal should be handled. Currently, if a pet with a lapsed rabies vaccination is exposed to a rabid animal, the law in many states requires the pet to be quarantined for several months at the owner’s expense, or euthanized. In October 2014, a Brockton, Massachusetts woman was forced ...

Cats and dogs can get into a lot of trouble! If they've eaten something they shouldn't, the common advice is to induce vomiting by giving them syrup of ipecac or hydrogen peroxide. (My favorite item recovered by this method was a baby sock that had been eaten by a cat!) However, there are some things that are actually worse coming back up than they were going down. In those cases, you should NOT induce vomiting by any method. These items include: Household cleaning products containing acidic or alkaline ingredients, which ...

I recently came across a very disturbing article in a veterinary publication about the errors being made by human pharmacists when filling prescriptions from a veterinarian. The Oregon Veterinary Medical Association (OVMA) conducted a survey to determine how often mistakes are occurring; and the results are horrifying! Examples of these errors include: • Changing Insulin. Pharmacists may substitute a cheaper product for the prescribed insulin. They do not understand that the many different types of insulin are not interchangeable. Using the wrong product may cause serious problems for pets. • Thyroid hormone ...

Many thanks to our good friend Jan Rasmusen for the following video and information. Click here to browse her vast resources on vaccines and more. Please be sure to sign this petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/veterinarians-fully-inform-us-before-vaccinating-our-dogs-and-cats The Darker Side of Pet Vaccination: A Video to Save Lives My sweet Maltese Jiggy died in August. His last moments are pictured here. His descent into lifelong illness started 11 years ago with rabies vaccination and puppy shots gone wrong. Vaccine-induced autoimmune liver disease — yes, this is a well-known reaction – eventually spawned two unrelated kinds ...