It can. Intact male dogs, especially. Their hormones can make them want to mark their territory. Sometimes getting rid of the testosterone influence can bring down that desire. But it depends on how old the dog is. It's not guaranteed to solve the problem, but it's certainly the first step if you're running into those issues. Sometimes it's learned behavior, and they don't come out of it. That's the case with a lot of behaviors of intact animals. You can't guarantee it will fix it, especially if it's an older dog, it's had time to mark all over the place, and that's the habit. But it is certainly the first place to start when there's a problem like marking with an intact dog.

A lot goes into breeding that I don't know that everyone understands. It's not just about having puppies. It's also about having healthy puppies. So making sure that the parents are healthy, they're not carrying any genetic things that they could pass on. For that reason, unless you're going to be committed to making sure that the puppies are healthy, it ends up being a lot more work and headache than it is worth. Dogs aren't like people in the sense that they want to be a mom necessarily. They don't really know what that is. So unless you're planning to breed the dog, I usually recommend not having just a litter for the sake of having a litter.

No, they do not. There are instances where we would not recommend spaying and neutering, like if you're planning to breed the animal or if there is a health concern with a risk for anesthesia. Things of that nature will make us recommend not spaying or neutering. On the whole, if you're not planning to breed the dog where there isn't necessarily a reason, at some point, it's recommended to spay and neuter because it can lower the chances of a number of health concerns.

Surgery is certainly not warranted in any, or in very many emergencies, or certainly not all of them. It depends on what the emergency is. Right off the top of my head, the first two things I think of is if you have a dog with an intestinal obstruction, and that dog is vomiting. Perhaps a young puppy ate a sock. That's the first thing that popped into my head. But if something like that happens, that might require surgery because you have to remove that physical foreign body and get it out. Otherwise, the patient will not get better. Maybe there’s a bladder issue, perhaps there are stones, or the bladder is blocked—those are instances that might require minor procedures, or maybe even a full surgery. Pregnancy issues can also lead to surgery. If you have dystocia where a pregnant female cannot deliver her pups properly, that might require surgery. But that is really about the only ones that I can think of on short notice.

I don’t perform surgery in the case of an emergency unless it's warranted because the last thing that I want to do is put an animal that's already stressed and debilitated under anesthesia. But there will be some cases where surgery is the treatment, or cure, for that set emergency. And again, what I just said is not a comprehensive list, but those are the ones that came to me off the top of my head.

There are some rare cases of resistant heartworms. What that means is the potential to get heartworm disease despite being on these medications. Again, that's incredibly rare, and we recommend all dogs are on prevention. Also, missed pills happen, as people are busy. Sometimes owners miss giving the pills, or the dog goes behind the couch and coughs up a pill. With even one missed pill, or if you're six weeks late giving a pill, something like that, your dog still has a risk for heartworm disease. As we've been trying to hit home, we need to catch this disease early, not late. With a dog that we think is on year-round prevention, if somebody missed a pill and the dog got infected with heartworm, we haven't tested this dog for four years. That means the dog could potentially have had worms in it for four years, and that could have devastating consequences to the heart and lungs.

Greenies are great. They're great dental treats, but ideally, brushing the teeth will be the gold standard for dental care.

That's a reasonable question. All the veterinarians in our practice are perfectly capable of working through skin cases. We will rarely send a pet to a specialist. That only happens a few times a year. In the vast majority of cases, we can work through it and help you understand what is going on. In most cases, we can help you prevent it from coming back. Many skin conditions don't just go away on their own, and acting quickly to control or cure skin issues can spare your dog discomfort and keep skin issues from worsening.

Hair loss would be something I'd want to see the pet for, as well as inflammation, discomfort, bleeding, and pustules. If it's affecting the pet's quality of life, you definitely need to get in and let us take a look at things. It's not normal for a dog to continuously scratch its ear. It's one thing to scratch an ear one time, and then he goes about his day for the next couple of hours. But anything they're focused on like that, sure, we need to take a look at it.