While rabies kills approximately 50,000 people a year globally, there’s no reason anyone should die from rabies in places where people have access to a well developed public health system. Rabies is almost invariably fatal, but is also almost entirely preventable with appropriate and timely response to an exposure. The weak link is getting people

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Recently, the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) designated leptospirosis vaccination to be a “core” vaccination in dogs. That means it’s recommended for all dogs. I’ve had a lot of veterinarians asking questions about this, since traditionally leptospirosis vaccination has been positioned as “optional” based on an individual dog’s risk of exposure.

I’ve considered this

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The ongoing H5N1 avian flu pandemic in wild birds (and all its various spillovers into domestic poultry, cattle, wildlife and sometime people) has led to a lot of questions about how we handle situations that increase human or domestic mammal contacts with wild birds. This includes a range of activities and animals, including:

  • Backyard bird

I’ve had a few questions about the risks posed by heartworm in imported dogs to local dogs. (This also speaks to just how often we import heartworm-infected dogs, but that’s another story…). Here’s a bit of a deeper dive into the topic based on a fictionalized (but very typical) scenario:

You live in Guelph, Ontario

Parasites are pretty gross in general – both the organisms themselves, and the concept of them living in or on you. Some parasites are of limited concern to people and pets, but others not so much… If I made a list of “parasites I really don’t want,” Echinococcus multilocularis (EM) would be high on the