1. Avoid the Christmas/Hannukah holiday puppy or kitty if at all possible. For ALL the reasons mentioned above, the holidays are a crummy time to bring a new pet home to live with you in their new forever home. In order to set your newest family member up for success, you need to set up simple routines for them that will keep them grounded and help them understand what is expected of them. Imagine you were toilet training a toddler. Sometimes you’d remember to take them to the toilet. Then you would forget and leave, and they would have not choice to but soil their pants, and then get in…

8. No tinsel for dog and (especially) cat households. Yikes! Tinsel is one of those items that pets (and some babies) can’t seem to not explore. And how do they explore it? By tasting and eating it. And that’s where big trouble begins. This is the sort of thing which can rapidly escalate to a life-threatening emergency, as the tinsel can form a foreign body obstruction. If it can’t be passed or extricated orally, expensive abdominal surgery is the only way to save your pet’s life. The Pet Poison Helpline has more info here. You’ve heard the saying “Curiosity killed the cat.” They were probably talking about tinsel. For your…

On Friday, October 27, 2017, a dog by the name of Ossifer, belonging to a longtime client and friend of both The Happy Pet Vet and Chris Watkins State Farm, put himself between his humans and a man with a gun. Ossifer was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and was shot 3 times while protecting his people. There isn’t much we can share (any information is considered part of an active police investigation) other than Dr. Shaw performed surgery to save her client’s dog, he is doing well, and he took the bullets that could have taken the life of his family members. During the 5+ hour surgery Dr.…