There’s a joke in the journalism world about headlines that ask questions. Why? Because the answer is almost always no. It has a lot to do with headlines being framed as clickbait. That is not the case here. The answer is a big YES. Indeed, vaping near pets can put them at risk, especially if the area is not well ventilated. Here’s why and what to look for.
As of mid-September 2025, I canceled our pet insurance renewal — after having policies on all 3 dogs since the day we adopted them (11 years ago for Clover, as an example). A 65% increase up to $556/month premium is too much. I wrote the following at the time. As a pro writer in the veterinary / pet space for 30 years, as someone who understands more than most about the true costs of providing veterinary care, as one of the best Dog Moms you’d want as a veterinary client, I say this … if/when you lose me, that’s a bad sign. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about the whole pet insurance situation these days.
A famous, longtime writer in the veterinary space who I follow online shared a link to a new site that lets you search for private equity veterinary hospitals in the U.S. and U.K. When the big corporate consolidators, or corporations that own a lot of veterinary hospitals, buy what was once a privately owned veterinary hospital, they often do not change the name of the practice. Until now, it was also hard to know if that big company is actually owned / funded by private equity. It’s affecting veterinary patient care, client service, and even doctor and staff retention and morale. This quick post also includes links to documentaries on the effect of private equity ownership of newspapers and other news organizations.
When I saw the headline that an international working group recently published canine cognitive decline guidelines, I thought — “perfect timing” — since we adopted a very old, frail, and often confused dog a while back + our other dogs are getting older too. When I read that the guidelines included a diagnostic flowchart, I got super excited. Except, now that I’ve read the paper and looked at the flowchart, it’s not as helpful (to me personally) as I’d hoped. That said, it includes good info about behavior changes to monitor and how to rank their severity over time. Toward the end, I include details and accommodations we’ve made for the Old Man Dog.
Monday, September 1, 2025, around 9:45 am, an officer from the Wheat Ridge Police Department in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, shot and killed a pet dog. That dog’s name was Boss. He lived near a highway exit with his owner, Dave, who is experiencing homelessness.
I learned about the case on Friday, September 5, 2025, from my veterinarian, who provided veterinary care for Boss.
I looked into the case because Boss’s life matters. He lived and died in my community, and that matters to me on both small and big scales. Unfortunately, Boss is a painful example of something that’s shockingly common. Police shoot and often kill dogs more frequently than you might think.
So, in Boss’s memory and to tell a story that, so far, no other local media has covered, I’m writing about some really difficult things. This is long, but I hope you will read it and share it.
!! Heart Dog Audiobook Now Available !! I know everyone is busy getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, so just a quick note to let you know that the audiobook version of Heart Dog: Surviving the Loss of Your Canine Soul Mate is now available on many audiobook platforms. This was a big goal for me in 2025 to record and edit it myself (after taking an online class this spring that I purchased in 2024). A lot of people lose their dogs this time of year, so perfect timing. I hope.
A while back I wrote a Q & A about that puppy rabies case in Colorado. The Pet Animal Care and Facilities Act Program (PACFA) , which handles licensing, inspections, and enforcement of animal care facilities in the state, as an offshoot of the state’s Department of Agriculture, established new Colorado vaccination rules for the facilities here and for rescue groups and shelters bringing in animals from other states. There’s going to be some fallout.
Some new data from Synchrony / Care Credit sheds light on how much dogs cost over a lifetime. The survey also summarizes where people now cut back due to the rising costs for everything dogs need. I always think these estimates are way, WAY low, but let’s take a look at the results of the 2025 Pet Lifetime of Care Study (with 1,541 dog owners responding to the online survey).
A study published in 2024 set up blind, independent case reviews with 3 different board-certified veterinary internal medicine specialists to gauge the likelihood of dogs actually being hypothyroid based on routine blood test results that found low total T4. The premise is that overdiagnosis of hypothyroidism in dogs is possible. Here’s what those specialists thought.
A study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in June 2025 looked at the effects of giving healthy puppies a combination of metronidazole-sulfadimethoxine. This study into common tummy meds for puppies found some not great outcomes in markers of intestinal health.
