Desert Cross Veterinary Hospital

07/05/2025

Is early weaning the foundation of separation anxiety in dogs?

I started working in the veterinary field in the 80s. I worked at a small 2 doctor practice on the west side of Idaho Falls. We did 2-4 surgeries each morning and saw a few appointments in the late morning and then started appointments again at around 1 pm in the afternoon. We washed and resterilized all the surgery gloves until they had holes in them and the syringes as well. The x-ray machine was a behemoth and it was dip tanks to develop. IV fluids came in glass bottles and thiopental was the anesthesia of choice. And, and most people didn’t wean their puppies until they were 12 weeks old.

I remember that it was just starting to change and people were starting to do it younger but for the most part babies stayed with the mom until she started kicking them off and making them grow up. It is kind of like when we parents are telling our seniors in high school that they need to go out and find a job and be prepared to live on their own. It was a slow and gradual process with increased training of the pups to learn how to be on their own and do their own and figure life out on their own with needing momma to show them. We didn’t seem to have separation anxiety back then.

When I graduated from veterinary school in 1997 the weaning age had become 8 weeks. Dogs were just starting to become more of a family member and less of an animal and more people were making them and having puppies is hard and takes a lot of work and they stink and so all of a sudden it was no longer about what was best for the puppy but what was best for the human and a few studies that could show that it seemed like physically it didn’t matter and *boom* all of sudden it was the accepted age to pull puppies away from their mom and send them out into the world. I will liken it to deciding that your 14 year old can go out and get a job and be on their own. We were just at the tip of starting to see anxiety issues but it was attributed to people who were too involved in their dogs life.

After a few year of mixed animal practice I started a large animal only mobile practice and drove around the state taking care of horses and cows and did not pay much attention to what was going on in the small animal world. Then, then I had kids of my own and so the conception and realization of Desert Cross Veterinary Hospital became a thing. I had been out of school for a little over a decade and the people bringing in puppies for vaccines were now bringing in puppies at 6 weeks and often younger. At the time I, like all the rest of us, assumed that since they were able to eat solid food, send them out the door. Once again, doing what is best and easiest for us humans mentally and economically but without consideration of what we might be doing to the emotional and mental health of the puppy that is barely figuring out life and is not thrust out the door and on their own with no mom and no siblings and just some human that leaves it in a crate for half the day because it isn’t old enough yet to have great control over its bladder and re**um and doesn’t know anything other than peeing and pooping whenever it wants to. Imagine now that you are shoving your 9 year old kid out the door and telling them to figure out life on their own.

I do think that anxiety, regardless of how one wants to define it or name it, is multi factorial. There is rarely ever just one cause. I believe that our overly processed and highly inflammatory diets play a big role in anxiety in our dogs as well as just how we treat them and cater to them and treat them like they are humans when they are dogs and while smart, they do not have the ability to reason and act far more out of instinct, an instinct that is severely handicapped because they were ripped from their mother before learning how to deal with and navigate their instincts.

There is not a single day that I go through any longer where I do not have people ask me about anxiety in their dog or tell me that their dog has anxiety. It is an epidemic, a pandemic if you will and it is all our fault, us humans because we want what is easiest for us and we want what we want right now and we do not want to wait. We selfishly demand puppies so that they imprint on us without realizing that by doing so we are destroying their mental and emotional health, all for us and our wants without considering what is best for the dog.

If you are going to get a puppy and you are paying a lot of money for it, shoot even if you are getting it for free, tell the breeder you don’t want it until it is 12 weeks old. I promise you, it will grow to love you and be all that you want it to be but it will be able to do that in a more mentally healthy way. If you are a breeder, consider keeping your puppies until they are 12 weeks old and allow for a more natural weaning process to take place. I know, I know some mammas hate their puppies but maybe those mammas shouldn’t be having puppies if they are not mentally in a spot where they can love them and train them?

Maybe, just maybe it is time that we humans actually consider what is best of the dogs and not what is best, easiest or what we want. Just some food for thought.

07/04/2025

07/03/2025

Everyone knows that fireworks scare dogs, horses, and people. We all know what is coming tomorrow night so instead of getting on social media and complaining about it, be proactive and get prepared to help your pet through it.

We will be open on the Fourth of July from 8am to 12pm. Four hours on a day when most people are not working in order for you to bring your pet in for an exam and pick up some medication to help them through a night of celebration for our nations freedom!

Call 928-348-0026 for an appointment and be prepared instead of angry because people are celebrating a great thing.

07/01/2025

Furrocious Shedder is the young Boer boel's name and it is true for sure.

06/29/2025

I recently was in an exam room with a client who was complaining about all the feral cats that came around their property. I listened and then I mentioned that we have a feral cat program.

I told them that if they trapped them and brought them in we would fix them at no charge and then they could release them back. They looked at me incredulously and said that it was not their cats and therefore not their responsibility to trap them. “Let nature take its course.”

I looked at them and as nicely as I could explained that nature was cruel and having cats breed and reproduce and kittens die was not pretty and not really fair when we could trap and fix and decrease the population in a more humane way. They disagreed and that was the end of the conversation.

Feral cats didn’t ask to be feral. It is not their fault that they are feral. They are just trying to live and survive and they need some human help to do that.

If you are feeding feral cats instead of letting nature takes its course, trap them and bring them in, no more than two at a time, and we will fix and you can turn them back out.

God gave us the job to care for His creation, His animals, and it is my life’s work to do that to the best of my ability and that includes taking care of the animals that have no one.

Help us to help them. Trap and bring them in to be spayed or neutered and then take them back and release them. Thank you.

06/27/2025

Let’s talk about awareness. I am going to step on some toes and p**s some people off but it needs to be done. We have certainly created a world full of sissies who are unable to be open minded enough to listen to and consider other points of view without getting offended and angry and it has greatly handicapped people and made them weak. If you get offended and p**sed off at alternative ideas and opinions, you are weak minded and that is a horrible way to go through life.

So now that I have p**sed off probably more than half of the people who are going to read this post let me get started on what I would like to write. I am visiting my parents in Idaho and yesterday my daughter and I were coming back from our massages and we passed this semi on the road and the whole truck was painted in pretty pink ribbons and had the saying, “we believe in breast cancer awareness” across the pretty pink ribbon.

It was cool looking and it certainly caught ones eye but what good does awareness do anyone? If you have breast cancer how is someone spending thousands of dollars on a new paint pretty paint job going to do anything to help you? I really do not care what one is wanting awareness of, spending money on raising that awareness, it does not help the cause. What would have helped more is that money that it cost to paint the truck all pretty being donated to a woman who was battling breast cancer.

Recently there was young woman killed from the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Emily Pike, and there was a big campaign to raise awareness for MMIW, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Let me ask you, how does any of that help young Emily Pike? How does raising money for billboards and shirts and paraphernalia do anything to keep the next young indigenous woman from getting taken or murdered? It does nothing! Raise money and spend it on building a girls home and staffing on the reservation so Emily could have been closer to her family.

Awareness of a problem does nothing to fix the problem and we need to stop pretending like we are doing something good because we raise awareness! What actually does good is action! What actually does good is money spent on a solution! What actually does good is change! Be it for cancer awareness, MMIW awareness, unwanted or uncared for pet awareness! Whatever the bad thing is, making people of aware of it, does not fix it or make it better or change anything to do with it. Action and monies spent on solving the problem changes it.

We have a nonprofit RACC, Rural Animal Care Collective, and through this 501c3 we are trying to help as many animals get spayed and neutered and medical help that we can. I do not care about you being aware of the need for this kind of help, I care about you helping me fix this problem the best we can. We all drive through the reservation and see the dogs dead or emaciated on the side of the road. I once saw a mama dog going into the road and carrying her dead puppies that had been hit on the road off to the side of the road and then going back and getting another one. There is a problem, we know it, we are all aware of it, big deal being aware, be part of the solution!

Spreading and sharing and not actually getting involved or donating to the actual project, does not help anyone. Sharing about breast cancer, doesn’t do anything to stop it or help the person suffering from it. Sharing about MMIW does not stop women on the reservation from getting trafficked or murdered. What does help is investing in group homes, businesses, programs that offer help, those are things that will make a difference, not awareness. I don’t want your money to spread awareness that rural pets need help, I want your money so that I can go and do something to help those animals!

This is a picture of a young puppy that is being brought into the clinic right now. There is no funding left from RAVS or GART but we are not going to turn this puppy away, we are going to do our best to help it so that maybe it will have the chance to find a home where someone will love it. Do not share this post if you are not going to donate something. I don’t need awareness, I need your money. I am going to help regardless but the more money we can make the bigger difference we can make in the lives of the animals that need us.

06/24/2025

I bought two bred mares from South Dakota a little over a month ago. I feel like the quarter horse breeding has gotten so far from strong, big b***d, be able to do anything, horses and I wanted to bring some of that back into the babies I make. These mares are big, soggy looking girls that have babies that are big and boggy and able to do whatever needs done. There are absolutely too many horses in the world and we are making more and more of them that can not hold up to the riggers of what we ask them to do and it makes me sad. I have written many times about my feelings on starting and using young horses that end up crippled and broken when they are not even a decade old.

When I first moved to Arizona almost three decades ago I had a client, Doug Gardner, a farmer who had a love of horses and kept about six brood mares and one stud. He bred those mares every year to his stud and he sold his six babies every year as weanlings as he had good horses that were well rounded and able. I always enjoyed going to his farm and visiting with him and learning from him. He told me all those years ago that in Arizona one should not be breeding mares after May or June at the latest as it was too hot. The babies would be born weak and the mares would not have as much milk and they would struggle more.

Over my years here I have always kept those words in my mind and it has absolutely proven to be true. One of those South Dakota mares foaled last week and the temperature was already in the high 90s and low 100s and the baby struggled way more than any of the other of the babies and got sick and dehydrated on her second day of life. We saved the baby because we noticed the diarrhea right away and were able to bring her in the barn and give her fluids and medications right away before she got too far gone. I have had one foal that was brought in for heat stroke and died. I have had other clients that call too late and there is nothing that can be done economically because the baby is too sick and too weak.

If you are making baby horses in Arizona and you do not have a barn and a way to keep that baby cooler for its first week of life, do not breed this late. It is truly just that simple. Try until the first of June and then put it off until next year. It is not worth the stress on the baby or the mare to have to be pregnant through the summer or the baby to be born in the 100 degree weather. It takes so long to get them here that having them be born just to die is not good for anyone or anything.

We are responsible for what we do with the animals that are entrusted to us. Starting them out at a time when we know it will be hard on them does not make them strong, it makes them dead.

06/23/2025

July 12th- Rabies clinics in conjunction with CCAC
* 9-10am at the Tombstone Animal Shelter
*11-1pm at the St David High School
*2-3:30pm at The Arena Bar in Benson

06/21/2025

You do not know what you do not know and you can’t know what you choose to not see.

I have a dear client and friend who has tolerated my rants about all sorts of things horse related. She takes to heart the things I say and ponders over them and does her best to try and learn and become a better horsewoman. Do not get me wrong, she is an amazing horsewoman and her husband is an amazing horseman but they both want to do better and be better for the horses. Is that now how we should all be?! Better for the animals that we claim to love and care about!

I recently posted about the importance of having x-rays taken of your horses feet to make sure that they are actually balanced and their angles are what they need to be. This client took that to heart and before her next shoeing she called up and made an appointment to have survey films taken of not just the front feet but the back feet as well so that she could share them with her farrier so that he could do what was best for the horses that she is asking to run around barrels for her, for her enjoyment.

People seem to be all onboard on making sure the front feet get taken care of and trying to keep them level but the hind feet often get neglected and it is costing your horse and you.

Absolutely there is more weight on the front end. It is generally accepted that 60% of the weight of an animals is on the front leaving only 40% for the back end but 40% is still a lot! If the average performance horse weighs say 1200 # that is 480 # of weight on the back legs and feet which means that each foot is responsible for 240 #. That is a lot of weight especially if you are not properly balanced and aligned. If your horse’s back feet are not level, angles are bad, it is absolutely going to cause increased stress and strain on their joints of the hind legs and their muscles of the hind leg and their back.

The medial/lateral balance of this horse in the hind was significantly off and once you stood it on the blocks and took the x-rays and actually looked at it it was easy to see the high medial aspect of the hoof. I am not a farrier and I try very hard to not screw up things with the foot of a horse because I am not a farrier but there must be something about how the feet are held that lends to a high medial fit because it seems most horses have it front and back.

If you only looked at the bottom of the foot it “looked” like it was level but radiographically, it dang sure was not and if you are asking your horse to push off its back end to propel you around a barrel at high speed, even a small bit is too much and increasing the pressures on the joints of the hind end. Just think of the money you could save if you paid for x-rays and worked with your farrier to balance and level your horse and decreased the stress on the joints and therefore you could stopped destroying their cartilage in their hocks and stifles by injecting them all the time because their feet were good and they moved better and had less stress on their hocks and stifles and pelvis?!

Information is power and an open mind is even more powerful. Maybe instead of taking the easy way out and just going with how it “looks” and injecting joints to mask the imbalances and issues, we invest that money into x-rays and farrier services and different feed so that we are supporting our horses and not just applying band aids that fall off as our horse falls apart!

When will we start truly loving the horse and putting their needs before our wants and what seems easy or right but actually isn’t easy or right for the horse we claim to love?

06/19/2025

July 12th- Rabies clinics in conjunction with CCAC
* 9-10am at the Tombstone Animal Shelter
*11-1pm at the St David High School
*2-3:30pm at The Arena Bar in Benson

Ok everyone, it is later than what we wanted and to be honest I thought about saying just forget it but it is so important to have your animals vaccinated for rabies that we are going to go for it even though it will be hotter than the surface of the sun.

Benefits for you pet owners is that your dogs and cats and critters and you get to stay in your air conditioned cars. We are doing this in conjunction with Cochise County Animal Control because of the severity of the spread of rabies along the San Pedro river.

We bring a team of about 10 people and it goes quick so it will not take all day but just a few minutes of your time. Please, if you have not gotten your dogs, cats, or horses, or whatever critter rabies vaccinated please plan on coming by for their safety and yours.

Please share and spread the word if you have unvaccinated animals and need a low cost price in order to be able to afford to get them done.

06/14/2025

This poor little very angry guy was found in someone yard. Looks like he might have possibly got bullied by a bigger dog. We have xrayed and treated him for his wounds and we would love to find his owner. Please share so we can get him home for his sake and so we can all keep our fingers 😁