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Guinea pigsPet parent17h agoMy guinea pig is about 3 years old and is an American guinea pigHi! My guinea pig is about 3 years old and is an American guinea pig. He’s had respiratory problems for around a year and a half. We’ve taken him to the vet about 4 times and tried antibiotics several times, but they didn’t really help. He still eats and drinks really well, poops normally, and walks around, but his breathing is almost always noisy. Sometimes he lifts his head and seems to struggle to breathe for about 20–30 seconds, then sneezes really loudly and starts breathing better again. He doesn’t breathe through his mouth and never squeaks in pain. Recently, the noisy breathing, sneezing, and these episodes have gotten much more frequent, which is really worrying me. Unfortunately, my family can’t afford expensive tests like X-rays or surgery right now. Is there anything affordable and safe we can do to help him and make his breathing easier? How uncomfortable do you think he is? And do you think we should take him to the vet again soon? Thank you so much!0 repliesNo vet yet
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ReptilesPet parentyesterdayTurtle shell growthHi, I have a young sulcata tortoise named Squirtle. His shell looks a little uneven—the front is slightly taller than the back, and there are some small raised areas. I’m worried about whether this is normal growth or early pyramiding. I currently feed him calcium without vitamin D3 and he gets natural sunlight when I can take him outside. I’m working on getting proper indoor UVB and tips i can improve on for healthy growing?0 repliesNo vet yet
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DogsPet parent2d agoIm not sure what this can beIm not sure what this can be0 repliesNo vet yet
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RabbitsPet parent3d agoI have a dutch rabbit named spinach, i just moved her from my home in new york to my…Hey! I have a dutch rabbit named spinach, i just moved her from my home in new york to my school house in nj, she was clearly stressed that day but seems to have settled down. Shes eating her hay and greens just fine but seems to be ignoring pellets, ive given her critical care just to get those nutrients in but im worried it wont be enough. Her poop looks normal, shes acting normal with no signs of discomfort (no teeth grinding, no hunching, etc.) and i dont know what to think of this. She still gets excited for treats and seems energetic. Any advice appreciated!1 replyNo vet yet
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DogsPet parent4d agoDog deathHello, my 13-year-old terrier passed away 6 days ago. The veterinarian told us she was in the terminal stage of a spleen tumor and ascites, and her hind paws were also swollen. In her last days she was immobile, in diapers, and on her last day she was refusing even water. My question for you, since I am very troubled by one moment—a few moments before death (I am not sure exactly, but no more than 1 minute to 2)—I squirted between 5-10 ml of water into the corner of her mouth through closed teeth using a syringe, because the day before she drank a lot of water and that day not at all. Shortly after, she passed away, and it troubles me whether I could have caused her some suffocation or if I caused her death with that amount of water (I am not even sure all of it went into her mouth because it's possible it leaked out the side). I have an OCD and situation is very hard for me. Thank you2 repliesNo vet yet
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CatsMaria4d agoMy cat started vomiting little amounts of watery brownMy cat started vomiting little amounts of watery brown. She’s puked around 6 times now but was moving fine. I’m just worried because I have no funds and it’s just 12:36am. I have no place nearby that is open overnight and especially that’ll take her if I don’t leave them with something1 replyNo vet yet
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GeneralErika5d agoMi perrita tiene pulgas demasiadas y por ellas tiene granitos y esto le produce un fuerte…Mi perrita tiene pulgas demasiadas y por ellas tiene granitos y esto le produce un fuerte olor a sarna y ya una vez estuvo enferma, quisiera saber que puedo hacer en este caso1 replyNo vet yet
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DogsErika5d agoMi perrita tiene pulgas como una invasión porque cada vez que me quito le salen más por…Mi perrita tiene pulgas como una invasión porque cada vez que me quito le salen más por esto tiene pequeños granitos en su cabeza y esto le produjo un fuere olor a sarna pero solo en su cabeza, y hace un mes estuvo enferma con fiebre alta fue a un veterinario y me recomendó darle hígado, pero aveces se pone así y el olor a sarna aún sigue y nose como hacer con sus pulgas1 replyNo vet yet
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GeneralDesiree5d agoSick Chihuahua I have a seven-year-old female Chihuahua, and we've taken her to the vet…Sick Chihuahua I have a seven-year-old female Chihuahua, and we've taken her to the vet three times, and have yet to find an answer or medicine to take care of what's wrong with her. We have been experiencing events where she acts completely different. She runs around in circles. Seems like she doesn't know where she's at. She lifts her foot up and down, up and down, up and down, moves her head all around, all around, won't eat, whines, doesn't act like her personality at all. It will last for a day to a day and a half, and then she just comes out of it, and she's back to normal again. And then it could last clean for a day, maybe two, three, and then all of a sudden she does it again. There's nothing that triggers her. While she's in this fit, she whines and whines, runs around in circles again, repeats all the same behaviors, and then just comes out of it. A couple days later, or it could even be one day, she does it again. It's been an ongoing event that we don't know how to handle it. We've taken her to three vets. Nobody's been able to diagnose it yet. Please, please help us. Anybody that has had a dog that has acted like this. please get ahold of us1 replyNo vet yet
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DogsPet parent5d agoShe is a 4 year old blood hound who ate a sock with two magnets in the sock I don’t know…She is a 4 year old blood hound who ate a sock with two magnets in the sock I don’t know what to do my mom knows but not my dad and it’s late at night and I don’t know what to do and all our vets are closed I need to know what to do.1 replyNo vet yet
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DogsDesiree7d agoSick ChihuahuaI have a seven-year-old female Chihuahua, and we've taken her to the vet three times, and have yet to find an answer or medicine to take care of what's wrong with her. We have been experiencing events where she acts completely different. She runs around in circles. Seems like she doesn't know where she's at. She lifts her foot up and down, up and down, up and down, moves her head all around, all around, won't eat, whines, doesn't act like her personality at all. It will last for a day to a day and a half, and then she just comes out of it, and she's back to normal again. And then it could last clean for a day, maybe two, three, and then all of a sudden she does it again. There's nothing that triggers her. While she's in this fit, she whines and whines, runs around in circles again, repeats all the same behaviors, and then just comes out of it. A couple days later, or it could even be one day, she does it again. It's been an ongoing event that we don't know how to handle it. We've taken her to three vets. Nobody's been able to diagnose it yet. Please, please help us. Anybody that has had a dog that has acted like this. please get ahold of us1 replyNo vet yet
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GeneralSandy9d agoI have Labrador Retrievers who get itchy from late spring until late fallI have Labrador Retrievers who get itchy from late spring until late fall. I have used Apoquel which has worked, but I am opposed to suppressing an animals immune system on a long-term basis. I am looking for some natural remedy, whether it’s food or supplements that actually work. I have tried several with not either a little improvement or none at all. Please give me some ideas of foods or supplements that might minimize the discomfort. Thank you.1 replyNo vet yet
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GeneralLionel9d agoHe has a red mark on his cornea and a bump by his penisHe has a red mark on his cornea and a bump by his penis0 repliesNo vet yet
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GeneralKenny11d agoTreatment options for torn CCL 18 month old German ShepherdI’m looking for options for treatment for an 18 month old 97 pound dog. I’m hoping surgery is not the only option.1 replyNo vet yet
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DogsPet parent15d agoMy dog has developed muscle wasting/atrophy on one side of the face, and that side of the…Dear Doctor, My name is Gayatri, and I am from India\. I am seeking online veterinary guidance and a second opinion regarding my dog’s health condition\. My dog has developed **muscle wasting/atrophy on one side of the face**, and that side of the face appears sunken compared with the other side\. There is also **redness in the affected area**\. A few months ago, my dog also experienced **bleeding from the nose**\. I am concerned about the underlying cause of this one\-sided facial muscle loss\. Could this be related to **Masticatory Muscle Myositis \(MMM\), a neurological condition, an inflammatory/autoimmune disease, an infection, a tick\-borne disease, or another underlying condition?** ### Current medications prescribed by our veterinarian: - Tab\. Freezyme TBR - Tab\. Claupet - Tab\. Doxycycline 300 mg - Tab\. Pred - Inj\. Doxycycline 200 mg - Inj\. Pred 2 ml I would be very grateful for your guidance regarding the following: 1. What are the possible causes of one\-sided facial muscle atrophy in my dog? 2. Is **Masticatory Muscle Myositis \(MMM\)** a possibility in this case? 3. Would a **2M antibody test** be appropriate and useful? 4. Would a **CT scan or MRI** of the head/face be recommended? 5. What additional blood tests or diagnostic investigations should be performed? 6. Does the current treatment require any changes or special precautions? I have photographs of my dog and available medical/blood test reports\. I can share them online if required\. I would sincerely appreciate it if you could review my dog’s case and provide any guidance possible\. An opinion from an experienced **Veterinary Neurologist or Internal Medicine Specialist** would be extremely helpful to us\. Thank you very much for your time and consideration\. I look forward to your guidance\. Kind regards,0 repliesNo vet yet
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CatsPet parent16d agoCountry: Ukraine Cat: Murka, 12 years old, mixed breed, female, weight 4.1 kgCountry: Ukraine Cat: Murka, 12 years old, mixed breed, female, weight 4.1 kg. Mammary gland masses have been known since at least July 2024. Cytology dated 17 July 2024 described a mammary gland cyst, but also identified cells consistent with a mammary adenoma undergoing malignant transformation; histopathology was recommended. As of August 2026, Murka has two mammary gland masses, approximately 0.5 cm and up to 1.5 cm in size. Repeat cytology dated 6 August 2026 showed that one mass is most consistent with mammary adenocarcinoma. The second mass has cystic changes; no signs of malignant epithelial neoplasia were identified in the examined sample, but malignancy cannot be completely excluded. In July 2026, urinary tract abnormalities were also identified. Urinalysis dated 12 July 2026 showed marked leukocyturia and a urine specific gravity of 1.025. A urine culture from the same date identified Enterococcus faecalis. Murka is currently completing a prescribed course of Marfloxin. On repeat urinalysis dated 2 August 2026, urine specific gravity was 1.030, leukocytes were +++, and microflora was ++. Kidney function is also a concern because Murka has been drinking a large amount of water for a long time, currently approximately 400 ml per day. Blood chemistry dated 12 July 2026 showed creatinine 91 µmol/L, urea 11 mmol/L, and phosphorus 1.9 mmol/L. SDMA dated 2 August 2026 was 16.84 µg/dL, with the laboratory reference range up to 18.2 µg/dL. Hyperthyroidism was diagnosed in August 2026. Total T4 dated 2 August 2026 was 71 nmol/L, with the laboratory upper reference limit of 60 nmol/L. Treatment with Thyrozol (thiamazole/methimazole) has been started, and T4 and other laboratory parameters are being monitored at our local veterinary clinic. An echocardiogram was performed in 2024. Before possible surgery, we plan to repeat the cardiac examination and measure blood pressure, considering Murka’s age and newly diagnosed hyperthyroidism. The main purpose of this consultation is to assess anesthesia safety and determine how Murka should be stabilized before surgery. We would like to understand how safe general anesthesia would be after stabilization of hyperthyroidism and treatment of the urinary infection, taking into account possible underlying kidney disease and the need for an updated cardiac assessment. We would especially like advice regarding which parameters should be stabilized before surgery, which examinations are necessary for proper anesthetic risk assessment, what type of anesthesia and which anesthetic medications would be preferable for a patient like Murka, what monitoring should be mandatory during surgery, how perioperative fluid therapy should be managed, and how Murka should be monitored during recovery from anesthesia.0 repliesNo vet yet
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Other petsNate17d agoRat owners: what is your cage and bedding setup?Cage model, bedding, how often you are changing it, how many rats. Ventilation matters more for rats than for almost anything else and the setups people land on vary a lot. Also interested in what you tried first and dropped.0 repliesNo vet yet
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Other petsPawsRx Team17d agoWhat do you keep that the vets near you have never treated?Rats, hedgehogs, chickens, fish, something less common than that. If finding care has been hard, say what you keep and roughly what area you are in. We are building the directory around this exact problem, so the answers are genuinely useful on our end too.0 repliesNo vet yet
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ReptilesMichael17d agoWhat did you get wrong in your first setup?Almost everyone starts with something the pet store sold them that turned out to be wrong. The substrate, a heat rock, the wrong bulb, a tank that was never going to be big enough. Saying it out loud here saves the next person the same mistake.0 repliesNo vet yet
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ReptilesPawsRx Team17d agoWhat is your exact heat and light setup, and how long did it take to get right?Species, enclosure size, what is on the warm end, what you are measuring with, and where the numbers land. The specifics are what help somebody else. Also worth saying how many times you changed it before it held steady.0 repliesNo vet yet
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BirdsNate17d agoWhat toy or foraging setup has actually held your bird's attention?Most bird toys get ignored within a day. The ones that don't are worth knowing about, and the homemade ones especially. What has kept yours busy for more than a week?0 repliesNo vet yet
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BirdsPawsRx Team17d agoDid you convert your bird off seed, or are you still working on it?This is one of the slowest things in bird keeping and everyone's method is a little different. What you switched to, roughly how long it took, and whether it actually held. Still trying is a perfectly good answer. Plenty of people are.0 repliesNo vet yet
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Guinea pigsMichael17d agoWhich vegetables does yours actually eat?Every guinea pig seems to hold strong and completely arbitrary opinions. Bell pepper is the usual winner and past that it is chaos. What gets eaten immediately, and what gets ignored every single time?0 repliesNo vet yet
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Guinea pigsPawsRx Team17d agoWhat is your guinea pig setup, and what would you change about it?Cage or C&C grids, which bedding, how you handle cleaning. And the honest half: what you would do differently starting over. The second version is always better than the first.0 repliesNo vet yet
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RabbitsNate17d agoShow the setup. Litter box, flooring, all of it.Housing is the thing people get wrong first and there is no single right answer. What does yours look like now, and what changed from the first version? Flooring especially. That one seems to take everybody a few tries.0 repliesNo vet yet
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RabbitsPawsRx Team17d agoWhat hay does your rabbit actually eat, and where do you buy it?Rabbits are picky about hay and the brand that works seems to change every few months. Which one, and do you buy it locally or by the box? Also worth hearing if yours went off a hay they used to love.0 repliesNo vet yet
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FerretsMichael17d agoWhere did you find a vet who actually sees ferrets?This comes up constantly and it is the hardest part of owning one. If you found someone good, say roughly what area you are in and how you found them. Word of mouth, a rescue, an exotics list, calling twenty clinics until one said yes. It genuinely helps whoever searches this next.0 repliesNo vet yet
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FerretsPawsRx Team17d agoHow did you ferret proof a room, and what did they get into anyway?Ferret proofing is famously a losing battle and the specifics are the useful part. Which gap you missed, what you ended up blocking off, what they still find. Especially interested in the one you would never have predicted.0 repliesNo vet yet
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CatsNate17d agoNail trims: how do you actually do it, or did you give up?Serious question. Some people have a two person system, some do one nail a day, some pay the vet every single time, and plenty of people just let the cat win. All of those are real answers. What actually happens in your house?0 repliesNo vet yet
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CatsPawsRx Team17d agoWhat litter setup finally worked in your house?Box type, litter type, how many, and where you put them. This is the most common cat problem there is and the fix always turns out to be oddly specific to the house. If you solved it, say what you changed. If you haven't, say what you have already ruled out.0 repliesNo vet yet
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DogsMichael17d agoWhat is your dog's one weird non-negotiable?Not a health question, just a good one. The thing they will not budge on. Won't walk past one particular house, drinks from exactly one bowl, has to be touching a door frame to fall asleep. Go.0 repliesNo vet yet
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DogsPawsRx Team17d agoWhat finally worked for your dog's leash pulling?Everyone tries roughly the same four things and one of them eventually sticks. Curious which one, and how long it actually took, because the timeline is the part most advice leaves out. Harness, a specific training method, a trainer, or did they just grow out of it?0 repliesNo vet yet
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GeneralPawsRx Team17d agoWhat pet product do you use every day, and which one do you regret buying?Both halves are useful. The daily one because honest recommendations are hard to find under all the affiliate spam, and the regret because nobody ever writes that part down. Name the actual thing.0 repliesNo vet yet
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GeneralMichael17d agoWhat do you wish someone had told you before your first pet?Genuine question. Everyone seems to have one thing they learned the expensive way, and it is never the thing the internet warns you about. Could be money, could be picking the wrong vet, could be something as small as the bowl. What would you tell someone on day one?0 repliesNo vet yet
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GeneralMichael18d agoFind your nearest 24 hour emergency vet now, while nothing is wrongRegular vets close. Emergencies happen at 11pm on a Sunday, because of course they do. And the worst possible moment to work out where you're going is while you're holding a dog who just ate something. Takes ten minutes once. Look up the closest 24 hour emergency vet and confirm they're genuinely 24 hours, because a lot of clinics advertise emergency and then shut at 10. Call and ask what hours they take walk ins, whether they want a deposit up front, and roughly what the exam fee runs. Save the number and the address in your phone as a contact and get the drive route into your head. Then do a second one further out, because ER vets go on diversion when they're full and that happens more than people realize. Poison control, put both of these in your phone too. ASPCA Animal Poison Control is (888) 426-4435 and Pet Poison Helpline is (855) 764-7661. Both charge a consult fee, somewhere in the 75 to 95 dollar range. Pay it without thinking about it, because the case number they give you lets the ER treat off an actual toxicology protocol instead of guessing, and they're who the ER would be calling anyway. Then the money question, which nobody enjoys. An emergency visit commonly runs several hundred dollars before anything actually happens, and overnight care with surgery gets into the thousands quickly. Decide now how you'd cover that. Insurance, a dedicated savings buffer, CareCredit approved in advance, whatever fits. The reason to decide now is that financial decisions made in an exam room at 2am are uniformly terrible, and "let me think about it" costs time the animal might not have. One last piece. Know your pet's normal. What color their gums are when they're healthy (pink and moist), how fast the color comes back when you press on the gum with a finger, what their breathing looks like resting or asleep. Thirty seconds of paying attention now, and it's the first thing an ER is going to ask you about.0 repliesNo vet yet
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GeneralNate18d agoGo check that your pet's microchip is actually registered. Most people find out it is not.The chip is not a GPS and it isn't a database on its own. It's a number. It only does anything if that number sits in a registry attached to a phone number that still reaches you. The study that gets cited on this, published in JAVMA, looked at over 7,700 stray animals entering shelters. Microchipped dogs were more than twice as likely to get home. Microchipped cats were over twenty times as likely. Enormous effect. But then it looked at the microchipped animals whose owners were never found, and the reasons are almost entirely administrative. Roughly 35 percent came down to a wrong or disconnected phone number. About 17 percent were registered in a database that wasn't the chip manufacturer's. Nearly 10 percent were never registered at all. So the failure is basically never the chip. It's that you moved, or changed carriers, or the vet implanted it and nobody ever finished the registration, or the breeder registered it in their own name and never transferred it to you. Five minute fix. Get the chip number, which is on your adoption paperwork, or your vet has it on file, and any vet or shelter will scan for it free. Look it up at petmicrochiplookup.org, the AAHA universal tool, which tells you which registry actually holds it. Log into that registry and confirm your current phone, a backup number for someone else, and your email. If it's still registered to a breeder or a rescue, transfer it now. Do it today. It costs nothing and it's the difference between getting a phone call and stapling flyers to poles.0 repliesNo vet yet
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DogsMichael18d agoLearn what bloat looks like before your dog has itGastric dilatation volvulus, GDV, is the one where every hour counts and where a lot of owners lose the hours that mattered because it looked like an upset stomach. The stomach fills with gas and then rotates on itself. Once it twists, nothing can leave in either direction, blood supply to the stomach and spleen gets cut off, the dog goes into shock. Untreated it kills, and not slowly. The sign to burn into your head is unproductive retching. The dog heaves over and over and nothing comes up. Along with that: a hard swollen belly, especially behind the ribs, pacing and unable to settle or lie down, heavy drooling, standing with the elbows out and the neck stretched, pale gums, collapse. A dog that's vomiting and actually producing vomit is usually a much less frightening situation than a dog heaving up nothing at all. Risk concentrates in deep chested dogs. Great Danes are the extreme case, then standard poodles, weimaraners, german shepherds, dobermans, setters, boxers, akitas, basset hounds. Older dogs are higher risk, and so are dogs with a close relative who has bloated. It does happen to mixed breed and smaller dogs, just a lot less often. If you've got a high risk dog, ask your vet about a prophylactic gastropexy, which tacks the stomach to the body wall so it can't rotate. It's commonly done at the same time as a spay or neuter, which is the cheap way to get it, and for something like a Great Dane it's a reasonable default rather than a paranoid one. The feeding advice you'll run into, smaller meals, slow feeder bowls, not exercising hard right after eating, is worth doing and the evidence behind individual pieces of it is mixed. Worth knowing the raised bowl advice actually reversed in the research, so don't buy an elevated feeder as a bloat measure. Mostly though this comes down to recognition. If your dog is heaving and nothing is coming up, go now. Don't wait to see how it looks in the morning.0 repliesNo vet yet
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DogsPawsRx Team18d agoFoxtail season is right now, and they do not come back out on their ownIf you're in California, or anywhere dry and grassy out west, this is the summer problem that turns into a surgery problem faster than people expect. Foxtails are the dried seed heads off certain grasses. The seed is barbed like an arrowhead and the barbs only let it travel one direction, forward. It doesn't work its way back out and it doesn't dissolve. Once it's in, it migrates, and it drags bacteria along with it. UC Davis has case after case of these ending up in a lung or buried in the body wall after going in through a paw or a nostril. Season here runs roughly late April into October and is worst June through September, once the grass has dried out and started dropping seed. Where they get in and what it looks like. Between the toes, and you get a red swollen bump the dog won't leave alone. Up the nose, and it's violent sudden repeated sneezing that starts out of nowhere mid walk, often with discharge from one nostril only. In an ear, and the dog is suddenly shaking its head, tilting it, pawing at that one side. Under an eyelid, squinting and discharge. Anywhere under the skin, a lump that drains and won't heal. None of these get better with time. The only treatment is getting it out, and the further in it's traveled the more that costs and the more invasive it gets. Prevention is mostly avoidance and checking. Stay out of tall dried grass, particularly the brown stuff along trail edges and sidewalks. Check the dog after every walk: feet and between every toe, ears, armpits, groin, face. Trim paw fur on long coated dogs in summer. There are mesh hunting hoods, the OutFox being the common one, if you live somewhere genuinely bad for it. And pull the foxtails out of your own yard while they're still green. If one's sitting on the surface and you can see all of it, tweezers are fine. If it's gone below the skin or into a nostril or an ear canal, stop, because poking at it drives it deeper. That's a vet visit.0 repliesNo vet yet
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CatsNate18d agoCats hide illness so well that weight is basically your only early warningA dog that feels bad acts like it. A cat that feels bad goes and sits somewhere, and looks exactly like a cat sitting somewhere. That instinct is why so much feline disease gets caught late. Chronic kidney disease, hyperthyroidism, diabetes and dental pain all develop over months and the cat compensates the entire time. By the point behavior changes in a way you can't miss, it's usually well along. Weight is what moves first and it's the one thing you can actually measure at home. Half a pound off a 10 pound cat is 5 percent of body weight, the equivalent of a 9 pound loss on a 180 pound person, and you will not see it under fur. So weigh them monthly. Stand on a bathroom scale, note it, pick up the cat, stand on it again, subtract. Write it down somewhere you'll keep. That's the whole practice and it'll find things a year before you'd have noticed them any other way. Worth watching alongside it: drinking noticeably more, or bigger clumps in the litter box, which points at kidneys, diabetes or thyroid. Eating well but losing weight anyway, which is the classic hyperthyroid picture in an older cat. Hiding more than usual. Stopping grooming, or overgrooming one particular spot. And no longer jumping onto things they used to jump onto, because arthritis is massively underdiagnosed in cats and cats basically never limp. On water, since it connects. Cats came from desert animals and have a weak thirst drive, so they run mildly dehydrated on dry food, which isn't doing kidneys or bladders any favors over a lifetime. Wet food moves the needle more than any fountain does, though plenty of cats do drink more from moving water. Put the bowl away from the food and use something wide and shallow so their whiskers aren't hitting the sides. Senior cats, meaning around 10 and up, want bloodwork annually even when they look perfect. That's how kidney disease gets caught while there's still something useful to do about it.0 repliesNo vet yet
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CatsPawsRx Team18d agoIf you have a cat, never let lilies in the houseThis is the one plant worth being absolute about, because there's no safe dose and there's a real clock on it. True lilies (Lilium, so Easter, tiger, Asiatic, Oriental, stargazer) and daylilies (Hemerocallis) cause acute kidney failure in cats. Every part of the plant is toxic. Petals, leaves, stem, the pollen, and the water in the vase. A cat that brushes past a bouquet and then grooms pollen off its own fur has been exposed. Chewing one leaf can be enough. The FDA and the vet schools all land on the same timing: treatment started within roughly 12 to 18 hours of exposure is what saves cats. Past that the kidneys are often already gone. Early signs are vague and start within a few hours, so drooling, vomiting, going off food, hiding, generally acting flat. Then they can look like they've recovered, which is the trap, because that's exactly the window where the kidney damage is happening quietly. If you think there's been any exposure at all, don't wait for symptoms. Go, and bring the plant or a photo of it so it can be identified properly. Not every plant with lily in the name is one of these, for what it's worth. Peace lily, calla lily and lily of the valley are different plants with different problems, still not cat food but not the kidney failure ones. Peruvian lily isn't a true lily either. If you can't tell which you're looking at, treat it as the dangerous kind. Practical version: tell people not to send you flowers with lilies in them. Most florists will substitute without blinking if you ask. It's a small thing to ask for and it's probably the highest value item on the whole cat proofing list.0 repliesNo vet yet
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Other petsPawsRx Team18d agoNew fish keep dying? It is almost certainly the nitrogen cycle, not bad luck.The most common fishkeeping mistake is buying the tank and the fish on the same day, and very few pet stores will tell you not to. Here's the actual mechanism. Fish waste and uneaten food break down into ammonia, which is toxic. In an established tank one group of bacteria converts ammonia into nitrite, which is also toxic, and a second group converts nitrite into nitrate, which is comparatively harmless and gets removed by water changes and plants. Those bacterial colonies take weeks to establish. A brand new tank has none of them, so ammonia spikes with nothing to process it, then nitrite does the same, and the fish are burned and suffocated by their own water. That's new tank syndrome. It's why the first batch dies and, if you replace them right away, why the second batch dies too. The fix is cycling the tank before any fish go in it. Fishless cycling means adding an ammonia source, either pure ammonia or a pinch of fish food left to rot, then testing until you watch ammonia rise and fall, nitrite rise and fall, and nitrate climb while the other two sit at zero. That sequence is the colonies coming online. Takes anywhere from about two weeks to two months. Bottled bacteria helps some, and a used filter cartridge or a cup of substrate from a friend's established tank helps a lot. You need a liquid test kit to do any of this. The API freshwater master kit is the standard one. Paper strips aren't accurate enough at the low end where it actually matters, and "the water looks clear" tells you nothing, because ammonia is invisible. Last thing, since it comes up constantly: a betta in a bowl is subject to exactly the same chemistry as everything else. The small volume makes it worse, not better, because there's less water to dilute anything. A cycled, filtered, heated 5 gallon is the usual minimum and the fish behaves like a completely different animal in one.0 repliesNo vet yet
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Other petsMichael18d agoIf you have pet rats, respiratory disease is not a maybeRats are fantastic pets and this is the tax on them. Nearly all pet rats carry Mycoplasma pulmonis. It's not a sign you bought from a bad breeder, it's effectively universal in the pet population and usually passed from the mother. Plenty of rats carry it and look completely normal for a long stretch. Then age, stress, bad air quality or another infection tips the balance and you get the familiar picture: sneezing, a red brown crust around the nose and eyes, clicking or wheezing on the breath, hunching, weight loss. The crust throws people, so worth saying: that red stuff is porphyrin, not blood. It's a stress and illness signal, and a little is normal, a lot isn't. This gets managed, not cured. Vets treat flares with antibiotics, often doxycycline plus enrofloxacin, sometimes long courses, sometimes a nebulizer. Rats treated early do a lot better than rats you watched for a week to see if it settled. The part you control is the environment. Ammonia off urine wrecks their airways and accelerates all of this, so bedding gets changed more often than feels necessary and ventilation matters, which means a wire cage rather than an aquarium. No cedar, no raw pine, nothing dusty. Aspen, kiln dried pine or paper. Two more things worth knowing going in. Rats are intensely social and shouldn't be kept alone, so same sex pairs or groups, always. And mammary tumors are very common in females, usually benign and usually removable if you find them while they're small, so run your hands over her once a week. Spaying reduces that risk substantially and is worth raising with a vet who sees rats regularly. They live about 2 to 3 years, which is the real downside of rats. Everything above is about making those years good ones.0 repliesNo vet yet
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ReptilesNate18d agoIf your reptile keeps getting sick, suspect the thermometer before the animalMost reptile illness that walks into an exotic vet traces back to temperature, humidity or light rather than something the animal caught. Get the box right and a surprising number of problems just stop happening. Start with what you're measuring temperature with. Those stick on dial gauges that come in starter kits are close to useless. They read air near the glass and they're often badly off. What you want is a digital probe sitting on the basking surface where the animal actually puts its body, plus an infrared temp gun to spot check surfaces around the enclosure. Two tools, measuring two different things, and you want both. You also need a gradient, not a temperature. Reptiles are ectotherms and thermoregulate by moving, so the enclosure has to have a warm end and a cool end so the animal can pick. An enclosure that's one uniform temperature takes that choice away no matter how correct the single number is. Heat source on one side, always. No heat rocks, and no unregulated heat mats. Reptiles don't reliably move away from contact heat that's burning them, and the result is belly burns that take months to heal. Anything producing heat goes on a thermostat, no exceptions and no "it's only a small mat." Humidity is the other half of it. Run it too low and you get stuck sheds, retained eye caps on snakes, and retained shed on toes that constricts until the animal loses the toe, plus kidney trouble over the long run. Run it too high with poor ventilation and you get respiratory infections and scale rot. The right number is species specific and worth actually looking up. Which is the real point here. A ball python, a crested gecko, a bearded dragon and a leopard gecko want meaningfully different setups, even though the pet store will happily sell the same starter kit for all four. Look up your species, not "reptiles."0 repliesNo vet yet
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ReptilesPawsRx Team18d agoYour UVB bulb is probably dead and still turning onThis one catches conscientious owners, which is exactly what makes it worth posting. UVB bulbs stop producing usable UVB long before they stop producing visible light. The bulb looks identical. It switches on, the enclosure is bright, everything seems fine, and the animal has quietly been getting nothing for months. The rough replacement schedule manufacturers give: T5 tubes about every 12 months, T8 tubes about every 6, mercury vapor somewhere around 6 to 9, and the compact coil bulbs are shortest at roughly 3 to 6. The entire system for staying on top of this is writing the install date on the bulb in sharpie the day you put it in. Without UVB a reptile can't make vitamin D3, without D3 it can't use dietary calcium, and the end of that road is metabolic bone disease. Rubbery jaw, bowed legs, tremors and twitching, kinked spine, lethargy, fractures from nothing much. Early MBD is largely reversible. Advanced MBD leaves permanent deformity. It's one of the most common things exotic vets see in captive reptiles and it's a husbandry problem almost every time, not bad luck. Two other things that quietly kill your UVB. Glass and most plastics block it, so a bulb sitting on a glass lid is doing very little for the animal underneath. It wants to be over mesh, or mounted inside the enclosure. And distance matters a lot since intensity drops off fast, so the same bulb hung too high is effectively a weaker bulb. Check what the manufacturer specifies for distance and mesh, because it varies by product. If you'd rather know than guess, a Solarmeter 6.5 reads UVB output directly. Not cheap, but if you keep several animals it pays for itself in the bulbs you didn't need to replace on schedule and the one you didn't realize was dead.0 repliesNo vet yet
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BirdsMichael18d agoBuy a gram scale. Best 15 dollars you will spend on a bird.Birds are prey animals and they're extremely good at acting fine. In the wild, looking sick gets you eaten, so the instinct is to hide it right up until they physically can't anymore. By the time a bird is fluffed up on the floor of the cage with its tail bobbing on every breath, that's not early illness. That's very late, and it's an emergency. Weight is what gives it away first, and it moves days or weeks before anything else looks wrong. You can't see it under feathers and you won't feel it picking them up. So: a kitchen gram scale with a flat top or a perch, weigh in the morning before they eat, write the number down. Same time, same conditions, every time. Once you've got two weeks of normal, a change jumps out immediately. The scale matters because a few grams is a lot at this size. A cockatiel around 100 grams losing 10 percent has lost 10 grams, and there's no version of you catching that by eye. While we're here, the diet half of the same problem. All seed diets are still incredibly common and the damage is slow rather than dramatic. Seeds run high in fat and low in a lot of what a parrot needs, and vitamin A deficiency is the classic result. It shows up as crusty or swollen nares, white plaques inside the mouth, bad feather quality, and a bird that gets one sinus or respiratory infection after another. Sunflower seeds and peanuts are the worst of it because birds pick those out first and fill up on them. Most avian vets want pellets as the base with vegetables and a smaller amount of seed on top. Converting a committed seed eater is slow and you do it while watching the scale, which is another reason to own one. Don't just swap the bowl and hope. Birds will genuinely starve rather than eat something they don't recognize as food.0 repliesNo vet yet
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BirdsPawsRx Team18d agoThe most common way people accidentally kill a pet bird is in the kitchenIf you have a bird and nonstick cookware in the same house, this is the one to read. Birds don't breathe the way we do. They have air sacs running through the body in addition to lungs, and air moves through the system in one direction, which makes their gas exchange incredibly efficient. Great for flying at altitude. It also means anything airborne hits them far harder and far faster than it hits you. Overheated PTFE, the coating on traditional nonstick pans and what people mean when they say Teflon, gives off fumes you won't smell or feel at all. Birds die from it in minutes, often with no warning signs first. The breakdown happens at high heat, roughly above 500 F, which an empty pan preheating on a burner hits very easily. It's not just pans, and this is the part that gets people who already threw out the pans. The same or similar coatings turn up on self cleaning oven interiors during the clean cycle, on some space heaters, irons and ironing board covers, hair dryers, air fryers, waffle irons, drip pans, and heat lamps. The self cleaning oven cycle has killed a lot of birds specifically because nobody connects the two. The fix is removal, not ventilation. Get PTFE cookware out of the house and use stainless, cast iron or ceramic. If for some reason you can't, the bird goes in a different room behind a closed door with a window open, and you never run a self cleaning cycle with a bird in the home at all. Since you're auditing anyway: avocado, chocolate, caffeine, alcohol, salt and onion are all toxic to birds. So are aerosol sprays, scented candles, plug in air fresheners, and smoke of any kind. Birds and plug in air fresheners do not mix.0 repliesNo vet yet
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Guinea pigsNate18d agoAlmost every cage sold for guinea pigs is too small, and one pig alone is its own problemTwo things the pet store gets wrong at the same time. Size first. The cages marketed for guinea pigs are mostly built to a hamster footprint and priced for an impulse buy. The figure used across rescue and veterinary guidance is around 7.5 square feet for a single pig and about 10.5 square feet for a pair, and honestly the pair number should be your floor even for one. Guinea pigs don't climb and don't use vertical space, so floor area is the only number that counts. Tubes and second levels are decoration. They popcorn and they sprint and they need a straight runway to do either. This is the rare pet welfare problem you can fix with a tape measure and one purchase. Second, they're herd animals, and a lone guinea pig is a stressed guinea pig. Switzerland went as far as making it illegal to keep just one, which tells you roughly how settled the question is. Two females, or a neutered male with a female, is the standard pairing. Two males can absolutely work but wants more space and a slower introduction. While we're in here, bedding. Skip cedar entirely and avoid raw pine shavings. The aromatic oils irritate their airways, and respiratory infection is one of the most common reasons a guinea pig ends up at a vet at all. Kiln dried pine, aspen, paper bedding, or fleece over an absorbent layer are all fine. Respiratory signs to know, since this is the thing most likely to actually kill one: crackly or clicking breathing, discharge from the nose or eyes, sneezing that doesn't let up, sitting hunched with the eyes half closed, not eating. Guinea pigs mask illness well and then fall off a cliff, so that's a call the vet today list, not a watch it for a week list.0 repliesNo vet yet
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Guinea pigsMichael18d agoGuinea pigs cannot make their own vitamin C, and the water drops do not workGuinea pigs are in a very small club with humans and primates. They're missing the enzyme that makes vitamin C, so every bit of it has to arrive in what they eat. Get that wrong and you get scurvy, and it's not some rare textbook thing, it's one of the most common problems vets see in pet guinea pigs. The number the veterinary references give is roughly 10 mg per kg per day for a healthy adult and around 30 mg per kg for young, pregnant or sick pigs. In practice that usually gets quoted as about 20 to 25 mg a day for a normal adult. Now the part that catches people, because it's sold in every pet store. Those vitamin C drops you add to the water bottle are close to useless. Ascorbic acid falls apart fast in water, light and heat, and the figure that gets cited is that after about 8 hours you're down to something like 20 percent of what you put in. On top of that it changes the taste, so some pigs drink less, which is its own separate problem. What actually works is fresh food and fresh pellets. Bell pepper is the easy daily win, red or green, and by weight it carries more vitamin C than orange does. Parsley and cilantro are good too. Guinea pig pellets are fortified but the vitamin C degrades on the shelf over a few months, so buy small bags, look at the mill date rather than just the expiry, and resist buying in bulk to save money. If you want to supplement directly, use a chewable tablet at a dose a vet gives you, not the water additive. Early scurvy looks like a pig who doesn't want to move, a rough coat, swollen or sore joints, a limp, poor appetite, and small wounds that won't heal. It's very easy to file all of that under getting old.0 repliesNo vet yet
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RabbitsNate18d agoHay is not bedding. It is most of the diet, and the teeth depend on it.The pellet bag makes it look like pellets are the food and hay is a side dish. It's the other way around. Unlimited grass hay should be the large majority of what a rabbit eats, with a small measured amount of pellets and fresh greens on top. Timothy, orchard, meadow, brome, any grass hay is fine. Alfalfa is a legume rather than a grass and it runs too high in calcium and protein for an adult. It's right for babies under about six months and for a rabbit a vet has asked you to put weight on, otherwise treat it as a treat. Here's why this matters more than it sounds. Rabbit teeth never stop growing, and that includes the molars in the back, not just the obvious front ones. They stay the right length because of the long sideways grinding motion of chewing hay. Pellets get crushed with a short up and down chew and don't do the same work. Pull the hay and the molars develop sharp spurs that cut into the cheek and tongue, and now you're doing dental work under anesthesia on a repeating schedule for the rest of the rabbit's life. Signs you might already be there: dropping food out of the mouth, eating slower, going for only the soft stuff, damp fur under the chin from drooling, weight loss, and watery eyes, since the upper tooth roots can press on the tear duct. If your rabbit ignores hay it's usually one of a few fixable things. The hay is old and smells like nothing, so buy somewhere with real turnover and check that it smells green when you open it. Or there are just too many pellets on offer, so cut the pellets and hay gets a lot more interesting. Or it's sitting in a corner they never go to, so move it next to the litter box, because rabbits like to eat and go at the same time.0 repliesNo vet yet
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RabbitsPawsRx Team18d agoA rabbit that stops eating is an emergency, and the clock is about 12 hoursThis is the single most important thing to know if you have a rabbit, and it's the thing new owners find out too late. Rabbits are hindgut fermenters and the gut has to keep moving more or less constantly. When it slows or stops, which vets call GI stasis or ileus, gas and the wrong bacteria build up in the cecum, it gets extremely painful, and the whole thing feeds itself, because a rabbit in pain won't eat and not eating slows the gut further. The House Rabbit Society is blunt about the timeline and they're right to be. If your rabbit has stopped eating or stopped producing droppings for 12 hours or more, treat it as an emergency and get to a rabbit savvy vet. Left alone it can kill within a day or so after that. What you're watching for besides not eating: no poops at all, or suddenly tiny ones, sometimes strung together with fur. Sitting hunched and very still. Teeth grinding, which in a rabbit is a pain signal and not the contented purr people assume. Cold ears. A belly that feels hard or makes loud gurgling noises. Also worth saying out loud, rabbits can't vomit. Whatever goes in has to keep moving forward, which is a big part of why this goes bad so much faster than the same situation would in a dog. Two things to do now rather than then. Find the nearest vet who actually sees rabbits and save the number, because a lot of general practices don't and you'll burn real hours on the phone finding that out. And learn what your rabbit's normal litter box output looks like. That pile is your early warning system and it's free.0 repliesNo vet yet

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