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Fall 2023

Dogs

man with puppy
Summer 2019

Medicine that lands on all fours

Pets can be a vital anchor for people caught in the slow-motion disaster of homelessness. In Spokane and Seattle, Washington State University nursing and veterinary medicine students work together with the University of Washington and nonprofit partners to deliver vital care to both homeless people and their animal companions. » More ...
Dominic Dipietco with search dog Jeb
Summer 2018

To the rescue

Jennifer Brown ’99 grew up thinking a team of horses would be required to pull her away from an equine veterinarian career. Although Brown thought she was not that strong in science during high school, her love of training horses and interacting with the animals propelled her to pursue a doctorate of veterinary medicine at WSU.

The heroism displayed during the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, however, introduced Brown to a new possibility. “During my residency, 9/11 happened,” Brown says. “That obviously made a big impression on many people and one of the things that impressed me was the work of the search and … » More …

Winter 2017

Reconsidering health

Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates proposed that four basic personalities were driven by excess or lack of bodily fluids, the “humors.” Discredited by biochemistry, we may consider the idea humorous, but Hippocrates’ theories began a centuries-long consideration of temperaments and personality in psychology and philosophy.

Other ideas of human health were first spurned and then accepted. Germ theory, the thought that many diseases are caused by microorganisms, was treated with disdain when it was proposed in the sixteenth century. It didn’t receive its due until nineteenth-century experiments by cholera researcher John Snow and chemist Louis Pasteur, among others, proved germ theory’s validity.

Even today we continue … » More …

Winter 2017

Dog gone day

Our boy Mic’s symptoms were so subtle and their onset so gradual we didn’t initially see them. In fact, our other dogs noticed them first.

Mic, a Pembroke corgi then 12, had always embodied good “dog manners.” He’d never met a dog who didn’t like him. Suddenly, he was enraging his packmates. We sympathized; his nighttime barking was fraying our nerves, too.

A number of vet visits and lab tests revealed nothing, and Mic continued to decline. But when his spatial perception deteriorated, we realized he was acting like some elderly people and concluded, almost tongue-in-cheek, he had “doggy dementia.”

Turns out we were right.

… » More …