Desert Cross Veterinary Hospital

12/05/2025

Parvo never ever goes away in our corner of the world. I suppose that is why I have been slow in jumping on the band wagon of the alleged "Parvo outbreak" in the state. We see it all year long and it is always bad, sometimes really bad.

The thing is, it is almost completely preventable with PROPER vaccination! As soon as you pick up your puppy from the breeder, take it to your vet and get it vaccinated. I do not care if the breeder gives you a sheet of paper with half a dozen stickers on it, if those vaccines were not given at a vet office, there is a chance the vaccine was not good. We see Parvo positive puppies all the time that were "fully vaccinated" by the breeder or with feed store vaccines and they unfortunately get sick.

The thing is the feed store vaccines have to go through a process to get into those little bags that they sell them in and that process involves equipment and heat and heat inactivates the vaccine. No one is trying to sell you a bad vaccine, it is just what it is when you buy a vaccine that comes in a bag.

Your puppy needs three vaccines, given three weeks a part. If you do not want to pay us to give the vaccine then at least come in and buy the vaccine from us so you know it is good.

If your puppy stops eating and then starts vomiting, bring them in right away for a Parvo test. The sooner supportive treatment gets started the better chance of your puppy surviving.

11/29/2025

When it is time to say goodbye-

Euthanasia is as much a part of veterinary medicine as saving a life. I would guess that it is the number one reason people tell me that they decided they didn’t want to become a veterinarian. I often think to myself that it is not the thing to be feared in veterinary medicine because it gives so much peace to the animals that we love and is healing to them in so many ways.

The kindest and most loving thing you can do for your beloved animal is let them go without having to suffer unto death. We have all watched loved ones suffer for days, weeks, months and even years with horrible conditions and diseases and just age but we do not have to let our animals go through that. We can love them enough to give them peace in death and it is a great gift and an honor to be able to do that for them.

I am asked all the time if it is “the time”. I know that in veterinary medicine they train you, they instruct you to never tell a client that it is time but I think that is completely wrong. We are supposedly the professional and it should absolutely be our job to help someone navigate through the paths of life to the foot of the rainbow bridge if you will. No single person wakes up one days and thinks, “hmmm, today is the day I am going to have my pet killed.” No one does that! Everyone agonizes over it and worries about it and they don’t bring them in unless they know that their life is not good and they are just seeking someone to agree with them. As the vet, it is my job to do that for them. It is a gift that I can give to them that might just make a horrible thing just a little bit less bad.

The winter time is hard on our animals just like it is hard on us. The holidays increase our stress which inadvertently increases the stress on our animals. Our animals trust us to make the right decision for them when it comes time for the end of their life. It is never easy, it isn’t supposed to be but it always lifts a load off when we finally make that decision to let them be free. Free from the pain of a life well lived. Free from the pain of disease. Free from the agony of the inflammation and the arthritis and sickness that comes at the end of life.

Euthanasia is one of the greatest gifts we give the animals that give so much to us. It should not be seen as something to dread but rather a blessing that we can bestow upon them for all the love and joy that they gave us during their life with us. Euthanasia is hard because it is supposed to be but it is only hard because of all that our animals give to us during their life and that is what makes it the right thing to do for them.

11/26/2025

We will be closing today at noon so that our staff can go and get prepared for their thanksgiving meal and their families. We will reopen on Friday at 8am as usual. We will be doing emergencies between the hours of 6am-6pm today and thanksgiving day.

11/24/2025

We are open every holiday except Thanksgiving and Christmas and for half the day on the eves. That being said we still have our usual emergency hours available regardless of the day from 6am to 6pm.

If you have an emergency please call 928-792-9105 and leave a message.

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving 🦃

11/21/2025

11/20/2025

I realize in the big scheme of cold, Southern Arizona isn't cold and generally doesn't really get cold but for us desert dwellers and the animals that trust us to care for them, the cold season is starting. With this cold comes illness and disease that is a bit more unique than a lot of regions because we have such huge temperature variations that seem to set our animals up for more respiratory and just all over body struggles.

It is really important if you have older horses that are thin, because they are old and their teeth might not be great, to help them out a little bit as our temperatures start to drop down at night. While I am not a big fan of blanketing your younger healthy horses, I am a huge fan of blanketing your old thin horses.

Horses warm themselves with their digestive process and as they get older and thinner they have less fat to help them stay warm and it takes them more to maintain what they have. I have my old mare who is the very first horse I bought on my own right out of veterinary school. She is going to be 29 in February of next year and she is definitely showing her age more each year.

When the temperature started dipping down to the 40s at night, I started blanketing her at night. When the temps started warming up during the day, I took the blanket off! Leaving them blanketed to sweat under the blanket doesn't help them and makes them colder. Blankets are not a put on and leave on for the rest of the season. You have to manage them and that means taking them on and off, cleaning them, making sure that your horse is not suffering more because of them.

It has been cooler the past two days so I have left the blanket on old Funny because she is thin and needs the extra help staying warm. I brought her in and floated her teeth and found one that was so loose it practically fell out on its own, the rest were smoothed out and the high spots taken down and her incisors shortened so she could better chew her hay. I moved her and the other old horse into adjoining stalls so that I could feed her more and supplement her with some senior feed.

If you are going to keep aging horses, you have to invest more time and effort and money into them. Have a pen where you can separate them and feed them all the hay they can eat and add in some senior supplements. Have their teeth floated every 6-12 months. Keep their feet trimmed every 6-8 weeks to help them move better with the arthritis that they are bound to have. Purchase at least two blankets so you can rotate them and clean them and let them air out and dry out. Do not wait if they stop eating or start with a bogery nose or cough, get them veterinary care ASAP.

Our older horses need us to take care of them like they took care of us all those years. If you are not willing to keep them and feed them and care for them extra in their olden years, find them a home that will before they get too drawn down and lose their spirit and will to live.

11/19/2025

I have received phone calls, messages, texts and smoke signals from clients asking about what they should do regarding upcoming barrel racing and roping events in Arizona given the EHV outbreak in Texas.

*First and foremost, pay attention to your horse. If it isn't 100% DO NOT GO! Stressed or sick horses will be more susceptible to the virus.

*Monitor horses' temperatures twice daily.

*Watch for clinical signs such as fever, nasal discharge, cough, or neurological symptoms (e.g., ataxia, stumbling, inability to stand).

*Do NOT share equipment (buckets, tack, etc.).

*Sanitize hands, clothing, and equipment after handling different horses.

*Park away from other trailers.

**Do not hang out on your horse visiting with other women or men in large groups. Put your horse away and then go to the stands and visit.

*Isolate any symptomatic horses immediately and seek veterinary care.

EHV vaccines are available but are primarily for respiratory and abortive forms and are not considered effective for preventing the neurological disease (EHM), though they may reduce viral shedding.

If you are worried and your horse frequently gets sick, stay home. It is way better for your horse for you to be overly concerned and to miss an event than it is to go and have them get sick and possible succumb to herpes.

11/18/2025

Share with us your pets best pose!

11/16/2025

COLIC

The length from end to end of the average horse’s intestinal tract is approximately 100 ft.

With that much GI tract no wonder there are so many tight turns in the abdomen. All the turns are contributing factors to colic along the GI tract.

Colic can range from mild to extreme and is one of the leading causes of death in horses. Depending on the cause of the bout of colic treatment and recovery outcome can vary greatly.

GAS COLIC is the most common and can come from feed changes, weather changes and routine changes.
Impaction colic is when things just get stuck along the GI tract and this type can be quite severe. Dehydration and changes in feed can be causes.

SAND COLIC is when sand is ingested when eating and builds up over time in a low point along the tract and irritates the lining of the bowel.

DISPLACEMENT is when a loop of intestine is out of place.

STRANGULATION colic is when a twist happens and the blood supply is cut off to part of the intestines.

ENTEROLITHS—when a mineral build up happens around a foreign body causing a stone along the tract. They can get lodged along the tract.

Signs:
🐎Pawing
🐎Kicking or biting at flanks
🐎Sweating
🐎Laying down and getting up
🐎Rolling
🐎Straining
🐎Lip curling
🐎Restlessness
🐎Increased respiratory rate
🐎Increased heart rate

💥TREATMENT💥
🩺Pain management
At times sedatives are needed
🩺Passing nasogastric tube and giving warm water, mineral oil and electrolytes
🩺Fluid therapy
🩺Surgery

👓Watching your horses carefully and knowing their normal behavior is key to getting treatment started early.

If you notice any changes or symptoms we recommend calling your veterinarian sooner rather than trying to walk your horse to death and waiting until after hours and not being able to get any help or having it be too late.

11/14/2025

Good morning! It is that time of year again for the World Series Team Roping Finale. That means it is time to get your updated Coggins on your horse, NOW. The last thing you want is to not be able to have your Coggins back in time to be able to go rope in the big one. Do NOT wait, come in NOW! We can no longer have coggins tests back over night so do NOT wait until the last day.

Also, very important to read the entire thing, because of Vesicular Stomatitis here in the great state of Arizona, your health papers on your horse have to be within SEVEN days of your arrival into Las Vegas. This means that you HAVE to bring your horse in a day or two before you leave so we can check their mouths and write your health certificate!

We can NOT write you a health paper the day we get your coggins back. We can NOT write you health papers without you bringing your horse in for us to see their mouths before writing your health papers a day or two before you leave! I know it is not convenient to have to add one more thing to do right before you leave for the big one but if you don't plan for it, you won't be roping in the big one anyway!

Your health papers MUST be written within SEVEN days of your arrival to Vegas and we MUST see your horse in person SEVEN days before you leave when we write you your health papers.

Thank you for being prepared and willing to do what you have to do in order to go and rope at the World Series.

11/13/2025

The beginning of the school year I received a text from the principal of the high school asking if I would give him a call. My initial thought was, what did Zac do this time, and then I gratefully remembered that Zac was not in school any more. I told the principal that I was very glad that my texts from him were no longer regarding something that Zac had done to a teacher. I am pretty sure that every year Zac was in school there was a call from the principal about something he had done with the very first one beginning with him trying to choke himself out with his hoodie strings. The principal made him pick weeds and I made him write 100 times, “I will not choke myself with my hoodie.” Raising kids is hard.

I called the principal and he asked if I would be willing to speak to the high school one morning for about ten minutes on being kind. Years prior at a different school this same administrator had had me come speak to his middle school regarding kindness and he felt like a similar message was needed. He gave me a couple of dates and I picked one and to be honest forgot about it until the week prior when he text me to remind me. Public speaking is an interesting thing. It creates anxiety and at the same time it also gives life a sense of purpose if one allows it.

You can talk to a person one on one and maybe or maybe not impact their life but the opportunity to speak to a room full of kids, you just never know if there is that one or two kids that are desperately alone and maybe need to hear what you have to say and would never have that opportunity if you didn’t push through the discomfort and put yourself out there. It doesn’t matter how old you are or what you have done, speaking in front of a group of people, is hard. You know that everyone is judging you and most are trying to find some reason to not like you or make fun of you for so that they feel better about themselves. Easy is to say no and just stay in your own little world but how does that help anyone else but you? Are we truly living if our life never impacts anyone but ourself?

I know that teenagers are hard to reach and they all think that they know more than anyone else. Being in high school was some of the worst times of my life. I just didn’t fit in and I didn’t know how to make friends and I always felt so alone because even with my friend I always felt like it was just more out of pity that she was friends with me and not because she actually wanted to be friends with me. Each kid in school is trying to find something wrong with everyone else to try and make themselves feel better about themself and it just makes it very tumultuous and hard. Much like the rest of life unfortunately because once you get out in the real world you find that your work place is not often much different.

I knew that to get the kids attention and have them actually listen to a message on kindness I would have to have something really impactful to say. That is not as easy as it sounds so instead I brought a couple of dogs with me. One of them was a ratty looking reservation dog named Pinky and the other was my big cool looking BoerBoel pup Qbert. I asked for volunteers and had about a dozen kids come down and stand around the dogs and asked them to call Pinky names and make fun of her for being ugly and scrawny and ratty. Not one of them would do it and they all looked at me horrified. I then asked them to make fun of Qbert because he had everything and he was the cool dog. The only kids willing to make fun of Qbert were the football players who of course called him fat because that is how the athletes do it, make fun of the fat kid.

The kids were not willing to pick on the dogs who would not even know what they were saying and would go back to the clinic and completely forget the experience but they spend their days making fun of each other and judging each other and trying to tear each other down when they truly know nothing about the life that one lives at home. So often we look at someone and we think that they are a jerk or a nerd or a show off and we decide that we are not going to like them because of it and we start looking for things to tear them down about and we have no clue as to what they have gone though that makes them who they are. Why is it that we are so willing to hate another person that we don’t know their past traumas and internal struggles?

I spoke to the kids about how I had spoiled my son terribly because he had struggled so much with his mental health and how kids had made fun of him and were mean and rude to him because he had a nice car and got whatever he wanted. I told them that what they didn’t know was the horrible times at home when he was suicidal and the fear that I had that he would take his life and that I spoiled him because I wanted him to know that I loved him and that I was there for him and I was pay attention to what he wanted and needed. I didn’t do it so he could be better than anyone, I did it to try and have a lifeline to him. I am not saying it was the best thing to do but it was all I knew how to do.

That person that you hate, that person that you are making fun of at work, that person that you just can’t stand on social media because they are so needy and post selfies all the time and have a sense of desperation in what they share, you do not know the demons that they are fighting on a daily basis! You have no idea the pain and trauma that they have been through that has molded who they are. You have no idea how hard life might be for them on the inside even though they act like everything is great on the outside. We all need to learn to be kind! We all need to stop thinking that we have had it harder just because we know what we have been through! You have no idea what someone else has endured or how their mind has chosen to cope with the struggles in their life.

If you would not yell at and say horrible things to a dog, why are you so willing to do it to another broken human? Why is it that we humans are so hateful towards each other when we are all struggling with the same fears and anxiety and childhood traumas of all kinds? What if we actually started to choose to see each other as broken and instead of crushing the broken pieces, we chose to say something kind and be a bit of glue that helps to hold someone else together? We are all broken, when will we choose to stop throwing our broken pieces at each other and instead help each other heal? How can we help the younger generations if we are unwilling to heal and help each other?

11/10/2025

With the weather getting colder the feral cats are going to be coming around houses more frequently, especially ones with their own cats, looking for food and protection. This is a great time to trap the feral cats and bring them in to be spayed or neutered.

We have a feral cat program here at Desert Cross Veterinary Hospital. If you trap and bring in the feral inside the trap, we will spay or neuter them and give them a healthy ear notch and you pick them up and return them to where you trapped them. This helps to control the cat population and decrease the reservoir of diseases that can make your house cat sick if it comes into contact with an infected feral.

We do not charge for this service and we ask that you do not use it for your personal cats, regardless of how you acquired them. Just because you saved a kitten from outside doesn't mean that it is feral, it is your cat. We do remove a at least 1/3 of the tip of the ear to identify the feral that have already been fixed and to alert us to people who are misusing the feral cat program to fix their personal cats.

Please, only bring in feral cats to be fixed under the feral cat program. If you need help spaying or neutering your cat, we do offer ten free spay/neuter certificates the first business day of each month that you may come early, like before 5am and stand in line for.

If you have a personal cat that needs spayed the price is $115 and castration is $75.