Most of the telephone poles in my neighborhood have 5x8 missing cat posters attached to them. I've always wondered how many of those cats ever made it back home? Not very many, according to some new research from Ohio State Veterinarians. Fewer than 2% of lost cats are ever reunited with their owners.

That's an amazing statistic as far as I'm concerned, and here's another one. Forty percent of lost cats are described by their owners as "indoor only". I guess "indoor only" cats must bolt more often than I had imagined.

There are two basic methods used to predict canine hip dysplasia (CHD). Both of these methods use radiographs of dogs under anesthesia or sedation, in standard positions, to evaluate hips.

The goal of both methods is to provide valuable information about hip joint health and which dogs are more likely to pass on the genetic material responsible for CHD. This information can then be used by breeders to select for individuals less likely to be prone to develop CHD making the actual disease less prevalent.

I'll cover the implications of the new research later this week. In this post I'll describe the two diagnostic test methods and the relative advantages and disadvantages of each. 

I just read a great paper by a sociologist about gender shifts in Veterinary Medicine. It's no secret that our profession is becoming dominated by women. There have been more women students than men since 1984, more women graduates than men since 1988, and as of 2009 there are equal numbers of practitioners. 

The question is why?

The second post over at K9 Chronicles involved a Veterinarian and her take on Pet Health Insurance. Anthony asked her three questions. What's the reality on the ground? Do clients really have pets put down due to costs and will Pet Health Insurance lead to higher Veterinary bills in the future. (this is a follow-up to a post I did on this blog yesterday)

You've probably heard about Veterinary Technicians. Heck, if you've been to a Veterinary Clinic lately, you've undoubtedly run into a Technician. In many good practices they perform most of the patient care and spend more time with clients and pets than many Veterinarians. My practice would have collapsed around me if it had not been for my Tech. In fact, I was able to get by as a solo practitioner for several years in large part because I had good technical assistance.

I know something about breaking bones and how they heal. As a former mountain bike racer I've had two crashes, one that resulted in a broken hip and another that led to a series of problems with a broken wrist. In the latter case, I developed what is called a non-union fracture. That means that the two ends of the broken bone did not heal and grow back together.

There was too much motion at the fracture site despite the fact that I was in a cast for six weeks. Frankly, I was a bad patient and a lot of the motion was created by me in an attempt to keep my arm from withering away.

I came across a really interesting group of veterinarians at last week's Western Veterinary Conference.

World Vets is an international animal aid group. Kind of the animal version of Doctors Without Borders, if you've ever heard of them. I spent some time talking to their representatives and came away very impressed.

Some really big news from the animal health care industry this week. Bayer, one of the largest pharmaceutical outfits in the world, announced that they will start selling popular products like Canine and Feline Topical Advantage and K9 Advantix directly to pet stores and large pet store chains like PetCo and PetsMart. They will also sell these products on-line.

The topic was pet health insurance when our own Dr. Bill Craig appeared recently as the featured guest on the TexVetPets podcast series from the Texas Veterinary Medical Association. Host Francisco Garcia asked Dr. Bill several questions about how pet health insurance works from the point of view of both pet owners and veterinarians.

But my favorite part came near the end, when Dr. Bill said that the frequently asked question, "Is pet health insurance a good investment?" is the wrong way to look at it.

He explained that, just like health insurance for ourselves and our children, you don't buy pet health insurance "in hopes of getting a return, you're really buying peace of mind." He added that the great thing about having pet health insurance for veterinarians, pet owners, and of course for our pets, is that

"when they're standing in the exam room, they don't have to talk about finances, they can immediately go to 'what's the right thing to do to get this pet healthy again.' " 

You can listen to excerpted highlights from the interview here:

MP3 File

Or go to the TexVetPets page at iTunes, where you can hear the entire interview (Episode 23), along with lots of others in which host Francisco Garcia interviews veterinary experts on a wide range of pet health topics.

In this episode, Dr. Bill and Dr. Larry talk some more about the value of pet health insurance when your pet suffers from a chronic condition that requires life-long monitoring and treatment. The example here is from a claim for a 13 year old cat diagnosed with kidney disease.

Dr. Bill gives another example from his personal experience with his own cat that lived with chronic kidney disease from age 15 to 20 years!