Category Archives: Internal Medicine

For decades, the marketing of Wonder Bread, with its added vitamins and minerals, claimed to build bodies eight ways: muscles, bones and teeth, body cells, blood, appetite, growth, brain, and energy. Pet food contains many of the same vitamins and minerals as Wonder Bread to build your pet’s body eight ways. This blogpost will focus on why minerals are so important in your pet’s diet.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a stray, flea-infested black kitten who found her way to the ER at the Schwarzman Animal Medical Center just in time for

Just before the holidays, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene released its annual report to veterinarians on an important infectious disease, leptospirosis. As a New York City veterinarian, this report concerns me, and pet owners should be concerned too. Following several years of declining infection numbers, cases ticked up in 2022, the latest year data was available. In total, there were 20 confirmed “lepto” cases in the five boroughs in 2022, up from 18 in 2021. (To see previous years’ reports, visit the NYC DOH website.) Leptospirosis causes kidney failure and elevated liver tests, which may require hemodialysis and may be fatal. This blogpost describes some important features of canine leptospirosis.

For those of us in the dog world, much of our focus over the last couple of weeks has been on infectious respiratory diseases in dogs. While the current outbreak remains a mystery, today’s blogpost will focus on the well documented link between respiratory and gastrointestinal illness in dogs. The link between these two body systems might surprise the casual reader; however, the two systems share a common origin: the mouth. The mouth divides into the trachea (windpipe) of the respiratory system and the esophagus leading to the stomach.

The American Animal Hospital Association recommends blood tests as part of an annual well pet examination. These tests include a biochemical profile, evaluating your pet’s kidneys, blood sugar, blood protein levels, and electrolytes such as calcium, potassium, sodium and chloride. The panel also always includes multiple tests of liver health, which I will be discussing in today’s blogpost.