On This Page: a directory to each of our treatment pages
In Other Words; This is a page of Contents
For This Site
Welcome. The heart of this web site is information on how I approach and treat many different types of small animal veterinary cases. Hopefully this will give you a good idea of what to expect when you take your pet to a vet for various problems.
This information is not intended to help you avoid professinal veterinary care...in fact... I think it will help you realize how difficult getting a correct diagnois and choosing appropriate treatment can be.
I don't guarantee it, but most of the information on these pages should be fairly accurate and the treatments I recommend will probably be similar to how your favorite local vet will proceed.
This page is basically a list of contents: Click on the part of the body or problem that interests you. The topics of different pages are listed below and also to your left.
This site is a work in progress. None of the pages are quite finished yet, but please see what I've written so far.
Loving, responsible pet care means going to the vet when problems occur...and understanding that good veterinary care requires attention to detail, a good exam, the possible expense of additional lab work, and careful treatment, monitoring, and follow up until the problem is improved as best as possible.
Thanks for visiting this site. I am a general practioner in a busy, high-volume clinic. I have no post doctoral training and am not a specialist in any veterinary discipline. I mention this for three reasons...first; most everything I put on these pages will be fairly accurate and hopefully useful...but the art of medicine is full of controversial treatment practices, theories, and occasionally hum bug that we Doctors unintentionally pass on as fact. Please forgive me if on occassion I turn out to be wrong, "behind the times", or in disagreement with another veterinarian.
The second reason I mention that I am a general practioner and not a specialist, is that I tackle a lot of subjects on these pages in hopes of helping you understand what's going on with your pet...but I want to make sure you understand I am not an expert authority on many of these topics. For instance, I know quite a bit about the basics of diabetes, hyperthyroidism, and cardiac disease, but I don't have a lot of experience or detail knowledge about treating these major diseases past the basic level. Just like a human general practioner; I refer these complicated cases to specialists.
The third reason? I am hoping that this web site will successfully attract a lot of viewers interested in the health of their pets and therefore attract other veterinarians and veterianary experts in their fields to add to this site in our common goal of improving pet health care and pet owner responsibility through education.
Please feel free to eMail me articles and comments at foxnest@metacrawler.com I will gladly give you credit for your articles and link to your site or organization.
Thanks very much, Roger Ross DVM Seneca, South Carolina
PS Please don't expect me to answer all the eMails I am getting asking me how to treat your pet or to make comments on the treatment your vet recommends. The information on these pages is general in nature and I hope very helpful to your understanding, but to give specific medical advice about a specific patient requires a careful exam, the collection of information and laboratory data, monitoring of the patient and modification of the treatment depending on results.
It's also legally dangerous for me to answer specific medical questions without taking the time and care to evaluate the patient...even assuming I had the time... Once a veterinarian gives out medical advice, he or she may be held legally responsible for the results if things go wrong. And things do go wrong. Life can be fragile. Because we are aware of all the possible things that might go wrong, we vets tend not to spout off until we take the time to be reasonably sure we know what the situation is and that we have it under control. So, If you want professional answers about an actual patient...you'll need to go to your veterinarian and pay their fee...usually well worth it!
About this subject of getting professional answers; be careful. You can have alot of confidence in almost all vets. It's a rare vet who can get through our rigorous training without being highly competent...and fewer still who survive in practice long being careless. On the other hand, you surely must realize that there's a lot of whacky and ineffective animal medical care advice out there given by groomers, trainers, breeders, old flower children, new agers, psychics, and self appointed guru's.
At any rate, I will probably be unable to take the time to answer eMails about specific medical questions, personal questions, or respond to some of the hate mail I'm getting about my opinions. God Bless, Roger Ross DVM