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Addressing a dog’s anxiety before it gets out of hand Sep 06, 2026

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According to owner-reported data from a large-scale study of dogs across the U.S., over 80 percent of our canine companions show mild signs of fear or anxiety in day-to-day situations.

The study excluded dogs’ learned fears, like those triggered by nail clipping and bathing. Short-term fear or anxiety — that is, the kind that people often experience, too — was most often associated with unfamiliar dogs and unfamiliar people. While this stands to reason and isn’t harmful, long-term anxiety can ultimately affect a dog’s health and quality of life.

That’s why fear-based behaviors should be recognized and monitored as part of a dog’s routine veterinary care. If signs worsen over time, they need to be addressed as soon as possible to avoid more serious consequences.

How animals could be affected by permanent daylight savings time Sep 05, 2026

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about permanent daylight savings time, but has anyone considered its possible effects on animals?

Pets need a few days — even weeks — to adjust to a time change. Animals run on circadian rhythms — that is, their internal biological clock — and changes in an imposed schedule can be temporarily confusing. Meeting them halfway — like tweaking meal times — can help soothe the transition. Depending on the pet’s needs, walk times and medication schedules may need adjusting too.

Wildlife might actually benefit from permanent daylight savings time. Take deer, which are most active just after dusk. A 2022 study estimated that thousands of deer deaths could be avoided by further separating peak commuting hours from sunset — which is precisely what happens with daylight savings time.

Cattle caretakers: never sit on swollen joints Sep 04, 2026

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Considering the various injuries that can befall cattle, you might think a swollen joint is no big deal — never mind an emergency. But that’s not the case.
Whatever the cause, joint swelling involves inflammation, which can damage the joint. Septic — or infected — joints are extremely painful and can cause even more destruction, which could be permanent.
Just because joint swelling could result from trauma, never assume it will resolve on its own. Instead, closely monitor the animal for increased swelling as well as lameness, lethargy or a decreased appetite. If the swelling doesn’t resolve within 24 hours, it’s time to call the veterinarian. Waiting longer could subject the animal to chronic lameness, arthritis and even a shorter lifespan.

Is heavy chili pepper consumption bad for your health? Sep 04, 2026

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Some people love their spicy chili peppers. Consider the Carolina Reaper. Calling it a hot chili pepper isn’t quite accurate. A summer’s day in Florida is hot.

With the Reaper, think in terms of the sun’s surface.

Capsaicin is the chemical responsible for a pepper’s heat. It’s measured in Scoville heat units. Tabasco sauce lands at 2,500 to 5,000 units on this scale. The Reaper scored a record 1.6 million.

In 2023, a new champion was bred, Pepper X, measuring 2.6 million.

People actually eat these culinary hand grenades. Do so with caution. A New York man who devoured a Carolina Reaper once landed in the emergency room.

Even milder peppers might be cause for concern when consumed in quantity. A recent study found that people who ate the most chili peppers had a higher risk of certain digestive tract cancers, especially esophageal cancer.

The association was noted after researchers combined data from 14 observational studies with a total of 11,000 participants.

Investigators say more research is needed. Don’t rush to the market for a chili pepper refund just yet. In fact, other research suggests that chili peppers might reduce the risk of heart disease and all-cause mortality.

Still, it’s well known that capsaicin can cause severe gastrointestinal distress, including vomiting, respiratory irritation and, in high enough doses, dangerously spiked blood pressure.

As with most things, moderation is the safest path. It can be difficult to pin any illness to a single element of one’s diet. Factors like smoking, alcohol use and genetics also play a role.

As for the guy who went to the emergency room? He survived — with the worst headache of his life.

Tracking the Tube: A Day in the Life of a Diagnostic Sample from Collection to Conclusion Sep 04, 2026

Show notes

Ever wonder what happens when a sample is sent to UF’s Diagnostic Laboratory? Dr. Michael Dark, clinical associate professor and director of CVM’s veterinary diagnostic labs, takes listeners behind the scenes of a diagnostic laboratory to explore the journey of a sample from collection to final result. He’ll detail the process, people and technology that ensure every specimen is accurately processed, analyzed and interpreted, turning samples into actionable information that helps clinicians and clients make informed decisions and support better patient care. Transcript: DANA HILL: Welcome to Animal Airwaves Live here on WUFT-FM, our weekly hour long show devoted to the discussion of the health and welfare of animals. So happy you could tune in today on this Friday, September 4, 2026. And happy to welcome to the program my guest from the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Michael Dark. And the topic today, Tracking the Tube: A Day in the Life of a Diagnostic Sample, From Collection to Conclusion. DH: That includes a lot of different kinds of samples and we’re going to find out what those are today. So, first of all, let me welcome you back to the program. Dr. Dark, really glad that you could be here. MICHAEL DARK: Thanks, Dana. Thanks for having me. DH: When we think about samples, we think perhaps about the – what happens when we take our pets to the veterinarian’s office and the veterinarian will do an exam, look over our pet, you know, look inside their mouths and maybe, you know, touch their tummies and that sort of thing. And then there might be an occasion which the veterinarian says, okay, we’re gonna just take the pet to the back and we’re gonna get a sample or two. This happens in a pretty good number of veterinary visits, would you say? MD: Yeah, yeah, I’d say a lot of visits end up getting samples, whether it’s kind of routine visits, but especially in animals who have some kind of problem where they’re getting worked up. DH: And would you say then that these samples for, you know, I mean, for in, well, visits and in visits where we suspect there may be a problem. And with these different kinds of samples, though, we’re talking about everything from, I don’t know, fluids like urine or something like that, to blood to maybe even tissue samples. MD: Yeah, and a lot of that depends on exactly what’s going on with the patient. But it’s pretty common to look at blood to try and get an idea about a lot of different conditions. It’s not uncommon for vets to collect stool samples to check for parasites. And then if there’s a mass or an issue, then tissue samples can tell you quite a bit about what’s going on. Because we can look at those under the microscope and get a better idea of what the disease is. DH: Then maybe let’s kind of start with some of the types of samples then, broadly speaking, that veterinarians might be looking at and what circumstances might lead them to collect these samples. You mentioned blood. That’s got to be one of the more common samples, correct? MD: It is, yeah. And for instance, a test a lot of people are familiar with heartworm testing in dogs is a huge thing, especially here in Florida, where we have mosquitoes nearly year round. Veterinarians will take blood samples a lot of times now, heartworm testing can be done in clinic, so they can take a sample of blood and apply it to a kit that’s a little like the Covid test kits a lot of us used during the pandemic to check for Covid. Instead of nasal swab, you put a drop of blood on and it will give you an idea about whether the animal is infected with heartworm or not. And so that’s a rapid test that can be done quickly in the clinic and a result can come back. DH: If you don’t mind me kind of getting into something complicated right off the bat. How are these sorts of tests devised? Who comes up with the technology that allows you to drop a little tiny sample of blood into a tube or something like that and figure out whether or not an animal might be infected with, say, heartworms or something? MD: It’s a lot of different people and groups and disciplines. It’s one of the things that I actually enjoy a lot about working at a place like UF where it’s not just veterinarians. The whole campus has experts in a lot of different areas. So, taking a test like a heartworm test, it’s people who can design antibodies to detect that organism. It’s people who can design the fluid handling; it’s people who can convert the test into a little tiny package. MD: So there’s a lot of folks involved to develop a new test. A lot of the mechanics of testing like the heartworm test are fairly well known. So, a lot of tests, if you’re developing a new test, you’re taking currently developed packaging and mechanics, and you’re adapting it to, say, a new disease process. And so a lot of that would be more microbiologists or virologists or individuals who are studying that specific disease, finding something that lets you identify that disease and tell it apart from other diseases that are similar, and then developing that into the technology of an existing test to package that up. DH: And then if this is a test that seems like it can be useful to a pretty large number of veterinarians or other researchers, perhaps it becomes commercially available. Some medical company creates these in volume and sells them to clinics across the country and the world. MD: Yes. And a lot of veterinary schools, including UF, have developed the initial test and then through patent licensing, will license it to companies to then produce the test in volume and sell that out at scale. DH: Yeah. Now, I don’t mean to get too much further down this rabbit hole. But when we think about diagnostic testing for human disease, these tests must be approved, probably by the FDA. Does the same thing hold true for tests for veterinary diseases? MD: Not broadly. The difference is a lot of the requirements are voluntary. So, for instance, UF’s Diagnostic Lab, as well as a lot of other labs across the country, are accredited by a group called the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians. So that’s a voluntary process. We sought out accreditation. MD: But for that group, if you are performing a test diagnostically on patients, you have to be able to show data that says that the test works the way you say it does, that you understand what the sensitivity and specificity of the test are and that it’s reproducible, and that you’ve – everybody who does the test has been trained in how to run it and interpret it successfully. DH: Yeah. You know, the average pet owner who comes in isn’t going to be aware of the accreditation that you all have sought out and received, but it certainly matters. And if it didn’t, you all wouldn’t have pursued this. Talk about a little bit about why you would seek to voluntarily pursue a certification and what that kind of means to y’ all who do this sort of work. MD: We sought out accreditation for several different reasons. Part of it is our lab and the folks who work in it genuinely have a dedication to quality. We are all pet owners. We all understand what these results mean in terms of the health of the animals that are having the tests done. And so the lab staff has a real dedication to quality. MD: And so this certification is important to them because it serves as a statement of the importance we put on producing quality, reliable results. The other reason for it is it lets us work more cooperatively with the state diagnostic lab and some of the state agencies and participate a little more broadly in animal health in general, because we can show that, yes, not only are we producing quality results because we’re a veterinary institution and a vet school, but that we’ve had external people come through and verify that we are doing what we say we do. And so it was important for a lot of reasons, but those are the main ones. And I will say that our staff really drove accreditation because of the importance that they put on it. They really felt like it was important. MD: It was an important statement for us to make of where we think the quality is and where it needs to. DH: Be when we go backwards and resume discussing, say, a blood sample. I recall a recent visit I had to my doctor’s office when I was asked to give a blood sample. And I’ve done this who knows how many times in my life. I think many of us have. And when the phlebotomist, or whoever it was, did the blood draw, I was reminded of how difficult it can sometimes be for even experienced texts to find a suitable vein and draw that blood. DH: And how I’ve given up allowing them to take the sample from the sort of inside of my elbow, the inside of my arm there in the crook of my arm, and I just point instead to the top of my hand where I have this like bulging vein that goes across and it’s so easy to see. And it occurs to me that drawing blood from an animal might present some challenges, not least of which is a bunch of fur in the way, maybe skin that’s not quite as easy to see through and identify a vein or something at any given point. How challenging is it to sometimes draw blood from, from patients? Especially when you’re talking about so many different kinds of animals. It’s not just dogs and cats, but you can need a blood sample from anything from a bird to a horse. MD: The level of challenge is really going to depend a lot on the animal and the skill level of the person drawing it. I have been lucky through my career to have a lot of very talented technicians who were really good at drawing blood. And the folks at the UF hospitals are excellent technicians. They do an amazing job. I don’t know that I would be very good at it anymore. MD: It’s been a while since I’ve had to draw blood on anything that’s not my own patients. And my wife does a lot more clinical work than I do. So usually, I hold and have her draw the blood nowadays. But yeah, for very small animals it can be really difficult. You have to use small size needles, much like in infants. MD: You’re going to use a much smaller needle than you would for you or I. And so the, a lot of it is experience. So, as you gain experience in species you work with a lot, it becomes easier to get blood samples. And you also learn some tricks in different species to make it a little easier. And so it’s a lot harder in a species you don’t normally work in, because you’re kind of going based on your experience and what the books say, and then you kind of have to try it a little bit. DH: I think many of us are familiar with the smallish sort of vial that is the receptacle for the blood that we give when we need lab work done. But of course, animals being such A wide range of sizes from, you know, like we were saying, a bird that might weigh only a few ounces to dogs that can weigh over 100 pounds, or horses that can weigh many hundreds of pounds, cattle and so forth. How much of a sample do you need of something like blood when you’re trying to diagnose some sort of illness? MD: We can get by with pretty small samples. Usually, we’re talking about a milliliter or two of blood, which is…I mean, if you think about maybe taking a regular sized glass, if you just get liquid on the bottom, you’re probably looking at a milliliter or so. So it doesn’t take very much blood at all. Ideally we get more because it gives us the chance to repeat blood work. MD: If there’s an issue or if somebody decides they want to add another test on, then the more blood that we have, the more opportunities we have to do additional things. But we can get by with very small amounts of blood. And luckily, as technology has advanced, the amount of blood we need keeps decreasing because we’re using a lot of times for a routine chemistry. For instance, you’re looking at chemical reactions to detect various things in blood. MD: The drive has been to use less and less blood over the years. And so the chemistry is still the chemistry. The reactions happen as long as you have enough to react. And so a lot of that can happen with very small volumes of blood. And so when we get exotic species in particular, like birds, especially small birds, small rodents, there’s just no way to get as much blood as you would even out of a cat. MD: And so we have very small blood tubes and can work with fairly small volumes of blood. DH: When you get the blood into a vial or whatever sort of receptacle, what does it take to, I don’t know, keep that from going bad, if I don’t know the proper terminology. But I would think that, you know, blood would tend to want to coagulate or, you know, who knows what else. MD: Yeah, a lot of that depends on what tests you’re running. Sometimes we want the blood to clot because we want the liquid part of the blood and not the cells. And so once the blood clots, we can spin it in a centrifuge to get that liquid off, and then we don’t need the rest of it. Sometimes we want it to have all the cells in the liquid. And for that we use a tube that contains an anticoagulant that stops the blood from clotting. MD: The most common one we usually use is chemical called EDTA. There’s a few others as well. But a lot of your listeners may have heard of heparin. It’s a fairly common drug. And so we have tubes with heparin in them that can stop the blood from clotting as well. DH: Then with something like blood, if you need to divide it up or retest it later, I mean, does it. Does it store. Is it possible to store it? MD: That, again, depends a lot on what test you’re doing. So, for instance, if you are looking for the amount of ammonia in the blood, ammonia goes away very quickly. So it gets drawn into a special tube, it gets put on ice and brought to the lab immediately because we have to test it within somewhere around 30 minutes or else it’s not accurate anymore. For a lot of tests, they’re good for quite a while, especially if processed correctly. So if you’re measuring glucose in the blood, you can measure glucose in the blood after a day, as long as you’ve spun the blood down and gotten the cells out. MD: Because if you leave the cells in, the cells will use up glucose and the glucose will decrease over time. So a lot of that depends on the tests. And I have to say, my specialty is not clinical pathology, who do a lot of the blood testing, but the clinical pathologists are really good about being able to say this test would be good under this condition. And so, generally, we refrigerate the samples that we get to let them be good for longer. And then it comes down to what tests people want to run as to whether that sample is still okay for testing or whether we need a new one. DH: Now, for everyone who is enjoying lunch at this hour, I apologize, but here I want to talk about some types of samples that I don’t know may be more or less challenging to collect. And I’m talking about, say, urine or stool. And it occurs to me that you could probably without a huge amount of difficulty, get many dogs to provide you a urine sample, let’s say. But a cat, I don’t know, that may be a little bit harder to get a voluntary sample. And I couldn’t even begin to tell you about every other kind of animal. DH: How do you go about getting these? MD: There’s a few ways to go around it. For cats, especially, if there’s not multiple cats in a house, there’s plastic litter you can substitute in their litter box so that it doesn’t absorb, so that when they use the litter box, you can then pour the urine out into a cup and collect it that way for all animals, or I guess most animals. There’s also the ability to do what we call a cystocentesis. So you can use a needle and syringe and insert the needle from the outside into the urinary bladder and get urine out that way. Stool samples are usually collected by waiting until the animal defecates and then collecting it. MD: And for most things, that works pretty well, especially for parasites, we try not…

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Cat parents can help in the fight against flea-borne murine typhus Sep 03, 2026

Show notes

Some areas of the U.S. are experiencing a boom in human cases of flea-borne murine typhus. Consequently, public health officials are hot on the trail for answers.

Flea-borne murine typhus is a bacterial disease caused by Rickettsia typhi. Microscopic flea feces containing the bacteria can enter a person’s body through wounds or moist tissues and then cause infection.

In the past, rat fleas were the primary culprits, but now there’s another actor. Recently, DNA from Rickettsia typhi has been found in cat fleas collected from pets in affected geographic regions.

While these bacteria usually don’t make cats sick, control is important for human health. Cat parents can do their part by keeping their pets indoors and using a veterinarian-approved feline flea and tick preventative.

Financial distress might heighten risk of cognitive decline Sep 03, 2026

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Watch your bank account. A healthy bottom line might just be protecting your brain.

A recent study published in the journal Innovation in Aging found an association between financial distress and cognitive decline. The British study followed more than 3,000 individuals from birth to age 74, a remarkably long period for such research.

Some research subjects also underwent brain scans.

All were asked about their financial situation at different points in their lives. Among the questions was whether they had struggled to pay for their basic needs, which they were asked at ages 36, 43 and 53. They were also queried about income levels.

The study assessed participants’ mental sharpness using tests that included timed letter search and word recall to measure memory.

Scientists found that financial hardship was associated with lower test scores by age 53. That’s earlier than most people expect to start facing cognitive problems associated with aging.

Repeated financial hardship tended to magnify memory and mental processing problems.

Brain scans also revealed a similar story. At ages 69 to 71, those scans showed that people with persistent low income had brains with larger fluid-filled spaces. These spaces grow as brain tissue shrinks. That can lead to cognitive decline.

Carriers of a gene linked to Alzheimer’s disease experienced the worst declines in the study.

Why financial problems may play a role in cognitive decline isn’t certain. But stress is known to affect brain health.

It’s also important to remember that the study shows an association but does not demonstrate cause and effect.

Still, save your pennies and don’t overspend. Your brain just might thank you.

A whole new outlook for cats with FIP Sep 02, 2026

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Feline infectious peritonitis, or FIP, used to be a death sentence for cats. Now they have a lot brighter future.

In short, FIP is a complex disease caused by a coronavirus that sets off an abnormal immune response. Left untreated, it can involve several organs in a cat’s body.

Now, thanks to effective new antiviral therapies, FIP is not only treatable but often curable. Updated treatment guidelines highlight medications like GS-441524, molnupiravir [mall-new-PEER-ah-veer] and remdesivir [rem-DES-ah-veer]. GS-441524 is the star of the show, in large part due to its oral administration and fewer side effects. Other guideline recommendations include shortened treatment protocols.

Keep in mind that most effective FIP treatments are only available through compounding pharmacies and must be prescribed by a veterinarian for an individual cat.

Saving the power of drugs that can save vision Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

Eye infections are common in pets and horses and are routinely treated with topical antibiotics. However, a recent study shows a troubling trend in antimicrobial resistance.

The study zeroes in on bacterial keratitis, an infection of the cornea that warrants immediate attention. If left untreated, it can rob an animal of its sight within days — sometimes even hours.

The problem is, many of the bacterial culprits are ramping up resistance to commonly used medications, sometimes becoming multidrug-resistant. This is especially so in specialty referral practices where many of the most severe cases are treated. What’s more, some of these bacterial species can affect people too.

Now’s the time to key in on antibiotic-sparing approaches — to help rescue the power of drugs that can save vision.

AI calorie counting apps less accurate, study shows Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

Calorie counting apps that rely on AI allege results far from artificial. New research from the American Society for Nutrition, however, suggests they tend to severely underestimate how many calories are actually being consumed.

The apps in question purport to analyze the nutritional content of a meal by using a single photo.

Most calorie counting apps ask that you input the food yourself — whether it be by searching for an item, scanning a barcode or filling out the food’s macros manually. When compared with snapping a photo, it can feel like it’s much easier to go the AI-assisted app route.

But the discrepancies between the number of calories you think you’re eating versus the ones you are could make it difficult to have an accurate read.

In the research project, team members took more than 100 photos of meals cooked in a controlled metabolic kitchen — where foods were measured with precision, to the nearest tenth of a gram. Then, they uploaded them to four common calorie counting apps that now offer AI-assisted estimation.

The apps missed between 250 to 350 calories per meal. Calories from fat, in particular, was underestimated by about 30 grams. Two apps were better at analyzing meals with high calorie counts than low ones, and all four apps were most accurate at counting carbohydrates over other macros.

The research project was a part of a larger National Institutes of Health study exploring how the body processes nutrients on different kinds of diets.

Now, no one is saying you can’t keep uploading photos of your treats and eats to the apps … but you might want to add in your standard calorie counting methods, too.

After all, a picture could be worth a 1,000 calories.

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