Doc of All Trades (2025)

22/05/2024

Ambitious to think one could hold a full time job, raise a cattle dog, and find time to post about it.

More to come. ✍️👩‍💻

07/02/2024

A Vet's Pet: Socializing!

According to the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB), the first three months (0-12 weeks) of a puppy's life are "the primary and most important time for puppy socialization." Those with dogs may recognize that this window of time is before puppy vaccines are completed-- 16-20 weeks depending on breed and lifestyle.

'Socialization' is sometimes mistaken as literally being social with other people or animals. In reality, it refers to all types of exposure to stimuli-- sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures. This is the period when puppy learns what things are safe and normal vs worthy of fear. Taking puppy out into wet grass for walks, doing something fun and positive during a thunder storm, feeding treats or playing a game when the garbage truck comes by, or acclimating your pup to paws and ears being touched are all forms of socialization, none of which require socializing.

With behavior being one of the number one causes of pet surrender, setting puppy up for behavioral success is considered higher benefit than the minor risks associated with age-appropriate socialization.

In this photo, Truffle is in a Marshalls! Pet-friendly, non-pet retail stores (nix on the Petsmart and Petco for now) are a great place to take a puppy for exposure to novel sights, sounds, and people, without close contact with other dogs and risk of preventable illness.

Playdates with healthy, vaccinated, friendly adult dogs that don't live a social lifestyle are also a good way for puppies to socialize, as well as puppy classes with a similar age group- as long as all puppies have received a minimum of their first vaccinations 7+ days prior to class.

You can read AVSAB's position statement at this link:
https://avsab.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Puppy_Socialization_Position_Statement_Download_-_10-3-14.pdf

How did you socialize your puppy?

Dr C

19/01/2024

A Vet’s Pet - Training

From my partner:
“We aren’t training this dog, it’s more like we’re aggressively negotiating with her.”

For Truffle’s training, I’m focusing on a primarily positive reinforcement, ‘LIMA’ (least invasive, minimally aversive) style of training. I highly recommend Dr Sophia Yin’s book “Perfect Puppy in 7 Days” which features step-by-step photo guides for early good manners training, and the model is a blue heeler puppy named Lucy!

Truffle is doing relatively well with her training, and future posts will go into more detail— but one of our struggles right now, and the reason for the negotiation remark, is that her intelligence and independence, parts of her nature by breed, mean she is challenging boundaries already, and trying to train us as much as we are her.

Every interaction is a learning moment, whether she’s learning something we want her to or not!

17/01/2024

A Veterinarian’s Pup: Diet and Feeding

Truffle is eating Purina Pro Plan Puppy (not a sponsor) dry and wet. Here are my do’s and don’t for her diet and feeding:

✅ AAFCO label for complete and balanced diet for *growth* of puppies. Puppies need specific nutrient ratios to grow properly, and feeding adult food to a puppy can lead to disorders of skeletal development

✅ Reputable manufacturer (employs numerous full time experts including food scientists, toxicologists, and PhD and DVM boarded nutritionists, conducts feeding trials and product research, performs end-product nutrient analysis, publishes in peer-reviewed journals, and has a long-standing history of strong performance and good quality control— other options I like include Royal Canin, Hill’s, Iams, and Eukanuba, with Pedigree as a runner-up)

✅ 90+% of her calorie intake is commercial dog food

✅ All food is used for reinforcement training of desired behaviors, fed through a puzzle feeder, or scatter fed, to help keep her busy cattle dog brain stimulated and reduce boredom

❌ No food from a bowl (see above), it’s boring for her and a bored puppy is a puppy that gets into trouble

❌ Nothing raw, raw-coated, or freeze-dried raw, it’s a general public health risk due to antibiotic resistant bacterial contamination, but puppies in particular are extra susceptible to food-borne illness

❌ No excessive treats, including fresh additions like fruits and veggies, as well as commercial treats and chews. These things need to be less than 10% of daily calories or they may cause nutrient imbalance to her overall diet

See the comments for links to more resources on these topics! Follow along for continued Truffle updates on how I’m caring for her.

Dr C

14/01/2024

Big Announcement!

I've adopted a puppy 🐾

Truffle is 10 weeks old and was in rescue with her littermates and parents.

She is an Australian Cattle Dog, also known as a 'red heeler' (or 'blue heeler' depending on coat color). The breed has recently been popularized in the Australian children's show, Bluey. ACDs are a working breed, bred for herding cattle, and they do so by nipping at the ankles to shift and direct movement (hence the term 'heelers'). High drive and highly intelligent, they can easily develop behavioral problems when living a pet type lifestyle if they aren't given tasks and work, and the challenges they can pose mean they frequently end up surrendered early in life. They can also have a headstrong, stubborn streak if not given strong direction.
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As a veterinarian, I'm frequently asked the question, 'what would you do for your own dog?'

Generally speaking, I tend to dislike that question, because the right decision for any given pet can depend on a lot of factors that differ between people, including finances, risk tolerance, desired outcome, and family circumstances. However, I also recognize the spirit of the question, which is: given your experience and education, what is your informed opinion on this?

So... I'll be documenting Truffle's journey, and through it, providing educational content on how I'm approaching her care, including diet, parasite prevention, vaccination, spaying, dental care, grooming, and training. I hope that you'll join us and maybe learn something along the way!

Happy New Year,

Dr. C

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