In this short video segment, Clarke Atkins, DVM, DACVIM, professor of medicine and cardiology at North Carolina State University talks about three things veterinarians should know about heartworm preventive resistance. Atkins recently completed a study looking at heartworm infection epidemiology in the Mississippi River Delta region. He and his team investigated increased reports of lack of efficacy (LOE) of heartworm preventives in Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi.

The FDA has approved the first drug for treating urinary incontinence in female dogs.

Two new studies from two universities show promise for the identification and treatment of lymphoma in dogs, and possibly humans.

Using the theme of "Houston, we have a problem," leaders of the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) announced the formation of a new organization to promote pet wellness and address the downward trend in veterinary visits. The Partnership for Preventive Pet Healthcare (PPPH) was announced July 18, 2011, at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) convention in St. Louis, by AAHA President Michael Moyer, VMD, and AVMA CEO W. Ron DeHaven, DVM, MBA. DeHaven said that like the crew and support team of Apollo 13 (which is where the phrase "Houston, we have a problem" originated from), the PPPH was formed to bring the profession together to find solutions to some of the industry’s most pressing problems.

Unicorns, jackalopes and hypoallergenic dogs are all in the same category of mythical creatures, according to a new study.

With the emergence of the worlds largest periodic cicada brood has come an uncomfortable problem for some Southern dogs: diarrhea.

Dogs and humans have shared many things over their 10,000-year relationship. Now it seems that the two species may have shared some genetic material as well, exchanged through the transmission of viruses, according to a new study from Uppsala University in Sweden. The researchers studied the genome of a female boxer and looked for chains that corresponded to known retroviruses, which can integrate themselves into the genome of their hosts. They found that only 0.15% of the canine genome was made up of these endogenous retroviruses (ERV), compared to about 0.8% in humans and 2% in mice.

A new study from Harvard University shows that dogs drink the same way as cats do, using "adhesion of liquid to the tongue tip."

  A pair of unrelated studies sheds some light on a parasite spread by cats, and a canine virus that could help understand the human virus hepatitis C. Researchers at the University of Illinois studied the prevalence of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii within a large park in central Illinois. T. gondii reproduces only in cats, but it is the cause of toxoplasmosis, which can have serious or deadly effects on other mammals including humans, most notably the fetuses of pregnant women. Using several detection methods, the scientists found dozens of feral cats in the area, and trapped 18 of them. They found that one-third of the cats were infected with T. gondii, and large numbers of other wild animals in the park that were tested also carried the parasite.

Rabid animals are on the rise in Arkansas and Texas, according to local news sources.