The obvious goal for every veterinarian and conscientious pet owner should be to vaccinate pets neither too frequently nor too rarely. In an ideal world, we would vaccinate pets exactly as often as necessary. I predict that in the future this will be the norm. But as of 2009, it is impossible to say how often pets need vaccinations.

Some facts are clear. Juveniles (puppies and kittens) need vaccines more often than adults. Animals with different lifestyles need different vaccination protocols. And most important, every individual responds differently to vaccines. Every individual therefore has unique needs.

Measuring those needs is impossible. Blood tests called titers give some idea of a pet’s response to previous vaccinations, but titers measure only half of the picture. Titers measure antibody levels in the blood. However, antibodies cannot function without another component of the immune system called cell-mediated immunity. At this time there is no way to measure cell-mediated immunity. Therefore there is no way to measure a pet’s true level of immunity to disease.

I agree that many pets are vaccinated more often than necessary. On several instances I have treated animals for autoimmune disease and wondered whether vaccines might have contributed to the problem.

However, on hundreds of instances I have treated canine parvovirus. In every single one of these cases I knew with certainty that vaccination would have prevented the problem. I never have treated a properly vaccinated dog for parvo. The vaccine works.

I euthanized a 12-week-old puppy today because of parvo. A vaccine could have saved his life if it had been administered at the right time.

Over vaccination is a bad thing. Veterinarians and pet owners should work to prevent it. But don’t forget that under vaccination is even worse.

Your best option as a pet owner is to find a good vet who will take the time to discuss the controversies surrounding vaccines. Tailor a vaccination protocol to your pet based upon his or her needs, age, and lifestyle.

My years as a vet have caused me to suspect that some people have no idea whatsoever how their pet’s mind works. Consider the following true story.

A gentleman brought his dog to see me. The dog had urinated inside the house the previous day. The man thought he knew why.

Earlier on the day of the incident, the man had caught the dog sleeping on the sofa. The man believed that the dog knew the sofa was of limits. The dog therefore became embarrassed and responded later by urinating on the floor.

This made no sense to me on the face of things. Why would a dog respond to embarrassment by soiling the house?

Furthermore, as the man was telling me this story, the dog was busily grooming his hind end. Is an animal that will lick its anus in front of a complete stranger capable of feeling embarrassed? I didn’t think so, and I said as much to the owner. He was shocked, and I had no come back for his retort:

“Well doc, he may lick his butt here in the room, but, see, he knows he’s not allowed on the sofa, so he got embarrassed!”

A recent issue of Time contained a fascinating article on canine thought. I was riveted as I read it. The article discusses attempts by researchers to learn more about how the dog mind truly works. It also discusses the evolution of dogs and a fascinating experiment in Siberia in which foxes have been bred to be remarkably similar to dogs over 40 generations.

But I was most interested in the article’s revelations on canine thought. Here are some quotes.

Trying to plumb the canine mind is a favorite pastime of dog owners. “Everyone feels like an expert on their dog,” says Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist at Barnard College and author of the new book Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know. But scientists had carried out few studies to test those beliefs–until now.

The first rule for scientists studying dogs is, Don’t trust your hunches. Just because a dog looks as if it can count or understand words doesn’t mean it can. “We say to owners, Look, you may have intuitions about your dog that are valuable,” says Hauser. “But they might be wrong.”

We’ve all seen guilty dogs slinking away with lowered tails, for example. Horowitz wondered if they behave this way because they truly recognize they’ve done something wrong, so she devised an experiment. First she observed how dogs behaved when they did something they weren’t supposed to do and were scolded by their owners. Then she tricked the owners into believing the dogs had misbehaved when they hadn’t. When the humans scolded the dogs, the dogs were just as likely to look guilty, even though they were innocent of any misbehavior. What’s at play here, she concluded, is not some inner sense of right and wrong but a learned ability to act submissive when an owner gets angry. “It’s a white-flag response,” Horowitz says.

While this kind of manipulation may be unsettling to us, it reveals how carefully dogs pay attention to humans and learn from what they observe.

It turns out that dogs may not feel guilt. The question of embarrassment, however, is still open.

Photo: Duke has nothing to feel guilty or embarrassed about.

Our new place is great. It even has off-street parking, which is a very big deal in San Francisco. But I hate moving. And apparently so does Buster.

Buster developed diarrhea two days before the move. It lasted until three days after, when I finally gave up on a mild protocol of easily digestible food and resorted to antidiarrheal medications.

During the move Buster also developed severe itching. He constantly scratched his abdomen. He engaged in excessive licking of areas that only dogs (and cats) can reach. At first I suspected that the itching was related to switching from Advantage to Frontline (which happened shortly before the move), or from an allergy to some chemical, contaminant, plant or mold in the new house. But now that we’re settled in, Buster is no longer itchy.

I suspect that both of these problems were caused by stress. Although Buster didn’t show any obvious outward signs of stress during the move, rehousing is famously and predictably stressful in dogs, cats, and humans.

Stress is a well known cause of diarrhea in all three species mentioned above. Stress is also known for causing skin issues in cats and humans. I now believe that it contributes to skin problems in dogs as well.

Stress also weakens the immune system, predisposing animals of all species to disease. In humans it has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. In cats there is a well documented link between stress and severe gum disease as well as certain potentially life-threatening urinary conditions.

Moving, unfortunately, is a fact of life. But if you have to move, try to settle in quickly. And once you’re in your new home, take time to pet the cat and walk the dog.

Photo: Buster settles in to his new digs.

But first:

Tomorrow I will be part of a small group that will meet with the President and CEO of Iams and Eukanuaba, Dan Rajczak. He will give us a brief presentation. A question and answer session will follow.

I realize that it is late notice, but I am wondering whether my readers have any questions they would like me to present to the leader of such a major pet food company.

Please post them in the comments section. Post them quickly — the meeting is in 14 hours. And be polite. I’ll check in tomorrow before the meeting, and I’ll post later to let you know how it goes.

Full disclosure: Iams/Eukanuba has paid for me to fly to Dayton, Ohio for this meeting.

Denise (that’s Buster’s mom) and I recently took our pal Buster camping in the Tahoe National Forest. The Tahoe National Forest is a paradise for people who love dogs and the outdoors. It has a remarkably liberal dog policy. Dogs are allowed, on leash, almost everywhere (there are a very small number of exceptions). Buster had the time of his life.

Sadly, some irresponsible people in one of the campgrounds where we stayed seemed determined to do everything in their power to undermine the National Forest’s dog policy.

We first encountered these people at a lake. Signs were posted clearly stating that no dogs were allowed within 100 feet of the lake. Their dog was swimming in the lake.

After they finished flaunting that rule, the couple tied their dog to a tree in their camp site and left for the rest of the day. Their dog evidently had severe separation anxiety. It barked incessantly for hours.

This bothered me on several levels. First, I knew that the neglected dog was suffering. Separation anxiety is not pleasant for the pet. Simply being tied to a tree and abandoned is not appropriate for any dog; a dog with separation anxiety will find this situation especially miserable.

Second, the barking was annoying. We had gone to the woods to enjoy tranquility. Instead we were serenaded with shrill, distraught barking for hours.

Finally, there is a high probability that someone else in the campground complained to the forest service about that dog. If the forest service receives enough complaints, dogs may one day be barred from the forest.

That would be truly unfortunate for responsible dog owners who follow the rules and properly care for their pets. My pal Buster enjoys camping. I’d hate to see that taken away.

Photo: Buster had fun even though we made him wear his hiking boots for part of the day.

The developed areas of Yosemite have a bit of a bear problem. Human visitors to the park have a tendency to leave food out and unattended. Bears are drawn to the food and eat it. Some bears begin to seek out and harass humans in order to steal food. Park officials are forced to shoot these bears.

The park officials make no effort to conceal how much they hate shooting their beloved bears. Campgrounds, parking lots, and park literature are plastered with warnings about the issue. Trash cans are bear-proof. Dumpsters equipped with bear-proof clips have signs that say “Use clip. Save a bear.” Bear-proof canisters for backcountry camping are stamped with a logo that says “save the bears”.

On the first night of my trip I camped in a developed campground in Yosemite Valley. My neighbors were idiots. They left a can of Pringles unattended on their picnic table.

It was somewhat entertaining to watch a bear eat the Pringles, but I also was heartbroken knowing that the stupidity of my neighbors may ultimately contribute to the death of such a magnificent animal.

The attitude of Yosemite park officials is that when bears become aggressive, it is 100% the fault of humans. The bears are not held to blame–they merely do what it is in their nature. If you leave a can of Pringles unattended on a picnic table, a bear will eat it. That is your fault, not the bear’s. If the bear begins to harass picnickers and campers, that is your fault, not the bear’s.

I like that attitude, and it shouldn’t only apply to bears. Dogs and cats (but especially dogs) also have a tendency to be “naughty” in ways that are entirely predictable, and that aren’t actually naughty.

If I leave delectable garbage in the trash can and forget to protect the trash in the dog-resistant cupboard, my pal Buster will get into the trash. He isn’t being bad. He’s simply being Buster. His love for chocolate and garbage is no secret.

Thank goodness See’s Candies don’t have enough theobromine (the poisonous ingredient in chocolate) to poison Buster. If they did, I would have had to take him into work with me for treatment on several occasions.

But one thing’s for sure: there’s no point in getting mad at the dog for acting like a dog.

I was driving on Fulton Street in San Francisco. Fulton is a busy street. It is adjacent to Golden Gate Park.

A Yellow Lab and its owner were walking toward the park on a cross street. I noticed that the dog was not on a leash. I thought to myself that the dog must have very good recall to stay obediently with the owner so close to the park.

It turns out that the dog did not have good recall. The excitement of a trip to the park evidently overcame him, and he decided to run ahead. He ran right into and across Fulton Street. The owner was left behind yelling and gesticulating frantically.

Fortunately the dog made is safely across the street and into the park. Both dog and owner got lucky.

Hopefully next time that dog is walked near a busy street the owner will keep him on a leash. But I worry about the dog’s future. The person who should be looking out for him doesn’t appear to have an ounce of common sense.

Photo: The Conservatory of Flowers, near the scene of the incident. By Markus Laber.

Sit, Kitty! Stay!

Playing fetch — it’s not just for dogs anymore.

Sit, roll over, shake hands — and this coming from an animal that takes 20-hour naps? At the UC Davis Companion Animal Behavior Service, you can learn how to train your cat just like a person would train a dog.

“Some people have a notion that cats are aloof or unfriendly,” said Melissa Bain, assistant professor of veterinary medicine and epidemiology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, “but they’re not!” Bain, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist, has trained her own cats at home for the past 10 years. “It’s not mainstream, and most people haven’t done it, but that doesn’t mean they can’t,” Bain said.

She said in the past, she’s seen cats play fetch, roll over, get in a box and shake hands, to name a few tricks. This is opposed to the usual tricks cats perform on a daily basis — eat, sleep and shed fur. And while animal trainers in Hollywood have been training cats for decades, this is a fairly new phenomenon for the common cat.

According to Bain, it’s important to use positive reinforcement when training cats, like rewarding them with treats, instead of punishing them, which makes them much less likely to want to participate in the training process. She also uses “clicking training” to help her cat recognize what she wants him to do. “It’s not magic — the clicker is a tool, and it can’t be used as punishment unless you throw it at them,” she said.

When I was a child I made a concerted attempt to train my cat to perform tricks. I can’t remember what tricks I wanted to teach her, but I do know that my attempts at cat training failed miserably. Obviously Dr. Bain has better credentials than I!

Photo: Lily gives five.

From the April 17, 2009 issue of The Week:

The Agony of the boiled lobster

That scream you hear when you place a live lobster into a pot of boiling water is just the air escaping from its innards. But make no mistake, says new research, your lobster is feeling the agony of being boiled to death. Some scientists–and most lobster lovers–have long contended that with their primitive neural systems, crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters cannot feel pain. But a new study on hermit crabs in Northern Ireland has placed that theory into question. Researchers found that after they zapped the crabs with electric shocks, the animals did more than recoil in a reflexive manner–afterward, they exhibited stress reactions such as grooming (scratching their bellies with their legs) and tapping against the undersides of their shells, much like a human might lick a burned finger. What’s more, the crabs seemed to remember the pain. Even after the crabs migrated to other shells, their stress behaviors continued. As with other animals, study author Robert Elwood tells Discovery News, pain alerts the crab to tissue-damaging injuries and protects it by provoking such “a huge negative emotion or motivation that it learns to avoid that situation in the future.” He found that when shocked crabs were given aspirin, they acted relieved, and their stress-related behaviors subsided.

Sadly, pain is one of the most fundamentally important sensations in life. Rarely, cats and dogs are born unable to feel pain. They rarely survive more than a few weeks because they do not learn to avoid dangerous situations.

Meanwhile, I will hope that no similar studies force me to stop eating mussels. After all, their nervous systems are much less developed than crabs’.

Photo: Martinvoll

I strongly encourage you to comment on this post. I want to hear your opinions. You are free to disagree, respectfully, your fellow commenters or with me. However, I insist that all comments be respectful. They must be respectful to fellow commenters, and they must be respectful to me.

Thank you in advance for not forcing me to delete any comments.

And now, as promised, here is what I think about raw food.

In my opinion, raw diets are neither better nor worse than commercial diets. Raw diets undoubtedly work better for some individuals. Commercial diets work better for others.

Let’s break this subject down by analyzing some of the arguments that have been cited against and for raw diets. I’ll start with the argument that my malpractice insurance provider never lets me forget.

Raw diets pose health threats to humans and pets.

This claim has been the subject of much ballyhoo over the years. It is true that improperly prepared raw meat can spread parasites such as tapeworms (although not the most common type of canine and feline tapeworm), Toxoplasma gondii, and Trichinella to pets and humans. Improperly prepared raw meat can spread bacterial ailments including Salmonella, E. coli and Campylobacter.

The above statements are facts. Whenever a client asks me about raw food, I feel compelled to bring these facts up. If I do not and a client or patient becomes sick from raw food, I could be sued.

But if one looks a little harder at these risks, it turns out that with care they can be managed. The phrase improperly prepared is critical. A client once confessed to me that she had contracted Salmonella three times from her dog’s raw diet. That confession said more about her than about the diet.

And let us not forget that any food, if not properly prepared, can spread disease. The most recent outbreak of Salmonella in the United States was due to contaminated peanut butter. Inadequately washed raw vegetables are thought to be the most common means of Toxoplasma transmission. Commercial pet foods occasionally are tainted with Salmonella or melamine.

Life is full of risks that must be managed. I love carpaccio, steak tartare, ceviche and sashimi. I realize they have the potential to make me sick, so I only eat them when I feel that I can trust the maker. People who feed raw (or, for that matter, commercial) diets should be no less cautious.

Raw diets often are not nutritionally complete and balanced.

Any home made diet (and, for that matter, many a cheap commercial diet) has the potential to be nutritionally inadequate. If people who make raw food for their pets do their homework, then this shouldn’t be a problem.

Commercially prepared raw diets are overpriced.

This argument is neither here nor there for me. It is every person’s right to decide how much to spend on pet food. As long as the commercial raw diets are balanced and nutritionally complete, then in my mind price is a private matter between the manufacturer and the consumer.

And, of course, one could argue that plenty of conventional commercial diets also are overpriced.

Studies have shown that cats and dogs can survive for many generations eating nothing but one type of high quality commercial food. This proves that the food in question contains all of the nutrients that cats or dogs need.

Indeed, these studies have been performed. And in my opinion they are significant.

However, most of these studies were funded by the manufacturers of the food in question. Such conflicts of interest cannot be ignored.

Furthermore, these studies do nothing to prove that pets can’t survive equally well or better on other diets.

Dogs and cats evolved to eat raw food. Wolves eat raw food. Therefore, raw diets are superior to commercial diets.

People who employ this argument occasionally throw in tidbits about digestive enzymes. For instance, I have heard it said that cats lack the necessary enzymes to digest carbohydrates. (If that were true, then the carbohydrate content of cat food would be irrelevant. Carbs would simply pass through cats undigested, like cellulose does.)

I also have heard the argument that canine and feline digestive enzymes are tailored to raw protein. Therefore, according to the argument, raw food is more digestible than cooked. (In fact, the enzymes that digest protein are very versatile. They generally can handle either type of food.)

In my opinion the evolutionary argument in favor of raw food is weak on a couple of levels. First, dogs aren’t wolves any more than humans are chimpanzees.

Second, even if dogs and cats descended from strictly predatory creatures, the current incarnation of both species survives mostly by scavenging. If you doubt this, I recommend that you spend some time (as I have) observing unowned dogs and cats in developing countries. That is as wild as either species gets.

In countries such as Guatemala, Nicaragua, Laos, Botswana, Swaziland, Cambodia, Peru and El Salvador I have observed the behavior of feral cats and dogs. They subsist largely on human leftovers. I have never seen a dog or a cat living independently on a prairie or in a jungle, forest, swamp or nature preserve. They generally live among people.

Both species have evolved to live among humans. We generally eat cooked food, and they often eat our leftovers. It is highly likely that their recent evolution has adapted both species to eat both cooked and raw foods.

Frankly, I don’t really care what cats and dogs evolved to eat. I care whether what they eat can lead to optimal health. In my experience, both commercial and raw foods are capable of meeting this expectation.

Raw food prevents and treats canine (or feline) allergies (or autoimmune disease, or inflammatory bowel disease, or some other dreaded problem).

To this argument I say prove it. I am not aware of any well-run studies that document definitive health benefits from raw food. I am skeptical about health claims that are not backed up by hard evidence.

Might the claims of raw food health benefits some day be proved? Sure. And if they are, I reserve the right to endorse raw food. In fact, if the claims are proved, I promise to endorse raw food.

But until I see good scientific studies proving the superiority of any type of food, I cannot in good conscience advocate the use of one food over another.

A note to commenters: I welcome links to studies that cite health benefits of any type of food. However, I will be skeptical of any link that points to a pet food manufacturer’s website or a raw food advocacy site.

My pet had constant problems with allergies (or dental disease, or autoimmune disease, or inflammatory bowel disease) until I switched to raw food. Now my pet is in perfect health.

That’s great, but it doesn’t prove anything about raw food or commercial food in general. There is no doubt that some pets enjoy better health when fed a particular type of food. But one pet’s experience with a particular food does nothing to prove that the food will have benefits for other pets.

The other day I met an 18-year-old dog who had eaten nothing but Alpo his entire life. I don’t generally recommend Alpo, but I couldn’t reasonably claim that Alpo hadn’t worked well for that pet. And, even though that dog had thrived on Alpo for so long, I still don’t recommend the use of Alpo in general.

And that leads me into my take-home message. Raw food is probably better for some pets. Commercial food is probably better for others. Neither has, in my opinion, been proved conclusively superior in general.

Feed your pet what works best for him or her. There’s nothing wrong with properly prepared raw diets. But there’s also nothing wrong with high-quality commercial food.

Live and let live.

Photo: my pal Buster eats nothing but Science Diet and table scraps that Aunt Laurie sneakily gives him.