Category Archives: Pets and Family

Keep Kids Engaged with Animal-Based Activities This Summer

A Veterinary Professional with Children and a Dog
Summer is just around the corner, and many parents will be looking for activities to occupy their children while school is out. For children fascinated by animals, there are a whole host of animal- and veterinary-related activities, lasting a few hours to a couple of weeks. This blogpost outlines some of those activities and provides resources to get you started on your search for the purr-fect summertime fun for your little animal lover.

The Truth About Hypoallergenic Pets and How to Reduce Pet Allergens

Two longhaired poodles
66% of households in the United States have one or more pets. Many more families would like to add a pet to their family, but allergies prevent the addition of a furry family member. In this situation families often ask, “Is there a hypoallergenic dog or cat breed that won’t irritate our families’ allergies?” I find this terminology strange because hypo- means less than normal but possibly still present. What someone with a pet allergy wants is a non-allergenic dog or cat, and no – there are no non-allergenic dogs and cats. However, some may be less allergenic than others, that is, hypoallergenic. I’ll discuss in today’s blogpost.

Happy Birthday, Leaplings! Celebrating Dogs Born on Leap Day

Oskar, a leap year dog, on a couch wearing a Happy Birthday crown
Leap Year rolls around every four years. For those born on February 29, they age (numerically) 75% slower than the rest of us because their birthday happens only every four years. The chances of having a “leapling” pet are about one in 1,461. Since the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center sees 50,000+ patient visits each year, I thought there must be some leapling patients in our system and, sure enough, when I queried our medical records, there were a number of them. To celebrate Leap Year 2024, here are their stories in order of their birth!

Caring Canines: How Pets are Helping Cancer Patients

A woman in a hospital with a therapy dog
November is National Pet Cancer Awareness Month and, for the rest of the month, my blogposts will focus on cancer and cancer treatment in pets. Last week, I provided a cancer care roadmap for pet owners following the diagnosis of cancer in their favorite fur person. Today, I am taking a bit of a different approach to cancer and pets. I am looking at some recent studies of how important pets are to people with cancer.