Demodicosis is a common disease that affects dogs globally. Despite being a commonly encountered disease, treatment can still pose a challenge for a variety of reasons: 1) demodicosis is often complicated by concurrent secondary infections which can delay or impede resolution of clinical signs; 2) other dermatologic diseases often mimic demodicosis, for example dermatophytosis; 3) the number one cause of treatment failure seen in secondary referral practice is inadequate length of treatment; and 4) systemic diseases or other causes of immunosuppression can play a role in the development of adult-onset demodicosis which also need to be addressed in order to achieve cure. Continue reading
At Your Service
Hundreds of skin diseases affect our animal companions, making their diagnosis and management both frustrating and challenging. The Dermatology Service at the Foster Hospital for Small Animals is led by board-certified veterinary dermatologists with extensive training in the diagnosis and treatment of skin, coat, ear and nail problems including allergic skin disease, autoimmune/immune-mediated skin disorders, infectious and parasitic skin diseases, genetic skin and coat diseases, and acute and chronic ear diseases in all species. Continue reading
Clinical Case Challenge
Clinical case challenge
History:
A 5-year-old sprayed female domestic short haired cat is brought to her veterinarian for evaluation of raised pink lesions on the medial thighs of 2 weeks duration. The owners report that she is a healthy cat that lives indoors but occasionally has access to a screened porch. There are no other cats in the household. She is up-to-date on her vaccines and is fed a high quality, nutritionally balanced, commercial diet. Continue reading
Innovation
At the Tufts Obesity Clinic for Animals, part of our mission is to investigate why weight management is so challenging and how we can make weight loss safer for pets and easier for owners and veterinarians. Drs. Linder and Freeman have surveyed pet diets marketed for weight loss and published the results in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. They found that ‘light’ diets varied tremendously in calorie density, feeding directions, and price (for example, dry canine diets ranged from 217-440 kcal/cup). These results support the notion that having owners simply ‘switch to a light food is unlikely to be successful’ and depending on the current diet, might even lead pets to gain weight.