Posts
Happy and Healthy, A Letter From Dr. Hawk
April 14, 2020 Here at Commonwealth Vet, we consider ourselves very fortunate to be an essential service and be open to care for your pets’ needs. To keep our staff and clients happy and healthy during this time, we’ve made several changes to our procedures, and I wanted to take a few minutes to make you…
Hannah’s Hospice: The Final Chapter
Those of you who have been following Hannah’s story know that in the last month or so, we’d really started to see her quality of life fading. Unfortunately, the past few weeks did not bring any positive change in Hannah’s life. Her decline was evident in the little things, like her needing us to encourage her to…
Danger: The Skincare Ointment That is Toxic to Our Pets
5-Fluorouracil Topical Cream (5FU or Fluorouracil 5%) is a topical drug formulation used to treat human skin cancers that is often fatal to dogs and cats if ingested. Dogs and cats are usually exposed to this cream accidentally (chewing on the tube or licking the cream off their humans after it has been applied), and the…
CVH Quick Tip: The Do’s and Don’ts of Pet Oral Healthcare
We focus a lot on pet dental health during the month of February, but good oral healthcare doesn’t just happen at the vet, and it definitely doesn’t end when February is over! Here are some of our top tips to keep your pet’s mouth healthy year round. Do: When you bring your pet in for…
Hannah’s Hospice: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
Caring for an aging pet with multiple health issues comes with a number of challenges, one of which is that even when we make improvements that feel like forward progress, it could be just a matter of days or weeks before another issue makes an appearance (or reappearance) and causes a setback. After switching Hannah’s…
Pet Insurance Part Two: Not All Plans are Created Equally
There’s no doubt that pet insurance is growing in popularity. As the market for pet insurance grows, the increase in the number of companies offering insurance is actually working to the benefit of the consumer, leading companies to design plans that are more likely to benefit their customers in order to avoid being edged out of the market by…
Patient Spotlight: Lilly’s Story
We first met Lilly in May of 2017. Her story started in a perfectly ordinary way, at least for us. Always the chunky cat in the house, she’d been gradually losing weight and was starting to look a little bit raggedy. On top of that, she had recently started drooling, which struck her humans as…
CVH Quick Tip: How to Safely Buy Your Pet’s Medications Online
In today’s busy world, buying your pet’s medications online can be a convenient way to save time. Sometimes, though, online sellers make offers that are simply too good to be true, and this can be a dangerous warning sign. Although they may offer great perks like unbelievably low pricing, illegitimate online pharmacies can put your pet’s health…
Dr. Hawk Reaches 40 Years in Veterinary Medicine
It is truly hard to believe that it has been 40 years since I graduated Michigan State University with my veterinary degree. I was 22 at the time with nothing more than an old rusty Chevy Vega that seemed to leak oil faster than I could put it in. I had survived an accelerated pre-veterinary…
New Year’s Resolutions We Can Actually Stick To
The start of a new year is so often full of lofty goals and good intentions, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We may even set goals with our pets, vowing to walk our dog every day or brush our cat’s teeth with any frequency at all. A mere two weeks into the new…
