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18/10/2026

If walking your dog feels more like being walked by your dog, this is the fix. 🐾

The Explorer Harness is a no-pull harness that takes the pressure off your dog’s neck and puts the control back in your hands. Here’s why it actually works:

🎯 A front D-ring on the chest, so when your dog surges, the pull turns them back toward you, no choking, no throat pressure, just a dog that quickly learns pulling gets them nowhere
🧷 Four adjustment points plus elasticated chest straps, escape-resistant on deep-chested dogs and slippery whippets, without being a straitjacket
✋ A padded top handle you’ll reach for more than you’d think, kerbs, car doors, stairs, or lifting a senior dog without twisting a hip
🌬️ Breathable mesh padding that stays comfy on long, hot walks
✨ 3M reflective trim and a built-in ID tag ring for the early and late ones
🌈 Nine colours, and it matches the rest of the Explorer range

The reason Duncan designed it is the honest part. In emergency he’s treated both the dog that backed out of a loose harness and bolted onto a road, and the dog that spent years pulling into a collar until its windpipe started to collapse. This answers both. His own dog Bridie has two replaced hips, so a harness that lifts evenly isn’t a nice-to-have in his house. 🐕

One honest note: a no-pull harness redirects pulling, it doesn’t train your dog on its own. Pair the front clip with reward-based loose-lead work. Clip front while you’re training, back once loose-lead walking is reliable.

Have a look at woopf.com 🐶

📱 get.askavet.com (iOS and Android)

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Another round of shots? It’s worth asking a few questions first. 🐾To be clear up front: this isn’t about skipping vaccin...
18/10/2026

Another round of shots? It’s worth asking a few questions first. 🐾

To be clear up front: this isn’t about skipping vaccines. They save lives, and diseases like parvo and distemper are deadly to unprotected dogs. This is about making sure the vaccines your dog gets are the ones they actually need.

Here’s what’s changed. A lot of boosters get given simply because the calendar says so. But guidelines have moved on, and many adult dogs no longer need core boosters every year. Research shows the core vaccines, distemper, parvo and adenovirus, can protect for 7+ years, and sometimes for life. 💉

That’s where titre testing comes in. A titre is a simple blood test that measures the antibodies already in your dog’s blood. For those three core diseases, a good result is real evidence of existing protection. A low titre tells you it’s genuinely time to boost. 🩸

A few important exceptions:

🐶 Puppies still need their full vaccine series, no shortcuts
💉 Rabies boosters are often required by law, and a titre usually can’t replace them
📋 A low titre always means it’s time to top up

The goal was never to vaccinate as often as possible. It’s to keep your dog genuinely protected, without boosters they don’t need. Individual dog, individual risk, individual decision. 🐕

So don’t vaccinate on autopilot. Ask your vet:

👉 What disease are we protecting against?
👉 What’s my dog’s real exposure risk?
👉 Is this shot due, or just scheduled?
👉 Can we run a titre first?
👉 Is this vaccine core, or optional?

Not sure what’s right for your dog? Chat to a certified vet on the Ask A Vet app. 📲 Download at get.askavet.com, code DRDUNCAN.

Approved by Dr. Duncan Houston, emergency vet.

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18/10/2026

What would you do with a mass this size? 🐾 This is a genuinely remarkable case, and a reassuring one too.

This dog had been through the wars. 💔 Over its life it had a splenic torsion and had its spleen removed, some other past issues, an enlarged adrenal gland, and then this: an enormous liver mass. Honestly, a tough run for one dog.

Here’s the part that surprised everyone, and it’s an important lesson. 👀 This dog was acting completely normal. The mass wasn’t found because the dog seemed sick, it was picked up almost by chance while it was in for an assessment of the enlarged adrenal gland. And here’s the kicker: it had had a CT scan just 10 months earlier, and the mass wasn’t there at all. It had grown this large, and this fast, essentially in secret.

That’s the thing about some internal masses. A dog can look and act perfectly healthy while something significant develops quietly inside. It’s a real reminder of why vet checks, and investigating things when they come up, genuinely matter. This was caught because the dog was being looked into for something else entirely.

The good news, and the reason I wanted to share it: the owners made the decision to go ahead and have it removed, and the dog did really well. ❤️ A massive mass, a dog that had already been through so much, and a positive outcome. Those are the cases that make this job worth it.

It’s also a quiet nudge: if your vet ever suggests a scan or further investigation, even when your pet seems fine, it’s often exactly how things like this get caught in time. 🩺

🌐 askavet.com, free pet health tools and 24/7 vet support
📱 get.askavet.com (iOS and Android)
🐶 woopf.com
🐱 purrz.com

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General veterinary education and clinical discussion, not a substitute for advice about your individual pet.

18/10/2026

If your dog or cat eats raisins or grapes, here’s something really important to understand: even if they seem completely fine afterwards, they’re not necessarily out of the woods. 🐾

This trips a lot of people up. Raisin and grape toxicity doesn’t usually cause problems the instant they eat them. The real danger, acute kidney injury, tends to take a couple of days to actually show up. So a pet can eat them, get treated, go home, and seem totally normal, while damage may be quietly developing behind the scenes.

That’s exactly why a kidney recheck matters so much. After the initial treatment, your vet will want to recheck their renal values, usually around two days later, because that’s the window where kidney injury reveals itself. It’s not an over-cautious extra step, it’s the whole point.

Ideally, a pet that’s eaten raisins or grapes stays in hospital on fluids during this period, because fluids help protect and support the kidneys through that risky window. Some owners prefer to take their pet home with water available and return for the recheck in a couple of days, and your vet will talk you through what’s safest for your specific situation.

The takeaway is simple but genuinely important: don’t let “they seem fine” lull you into skipping that follow-up. With raisins and grapes, how they look on day one tells you very little about their kidneys on day three. The recheck is what actually confirms they’re okay.

And as always, the easiest win is prevention, keep raisins and grapes well out of reach.

🌐 askavet.com, free pet health tools and 24/7 vet support
📱 get.askavet.com (iOS and Android)
🐶 woopf.com
🐱 purrz.com

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⚠️ If your pet eats raisins or grapes, contact your vet immediately and follow through on any recommended recheck. General veterinary education, not a substitute for advice about your individual pet.

17/10/2026

The click. The stretch. The swivel. Honestly, the Explorer Bungee Leash is pure ASMR and we’re not sorry. 🐾🎧

But it’s not just satisfying to listen to. It’s the lead for dogs that pull and people who run:

🔄 A bungee core that turns a lunge into a gentle pull, not a neck-snapping jolt
🏃 A padded handle that unbuckles to loop round your waist, hands-free for runs, hikes and pram walks
🚦 A traffic handle right above the clip for kerbs, crowds and surprise dogs round the corner
🌀 A rustproof 360 swivel clip, so no more twisted-up lead when your dog spins in circles
✨ A reflective line down the webbing for those early and late walks
🌈 Nine colours, including a very loud rainbow

One honest note from Duncan, because he’s a vet first: it softens the jolt, it doesn’t stop a dog. Clip it to a harness not a collar if your dog pulls, and skip it for dogs that lunge at traffic or other dogs, the stretch gives them distance at exactly the wrong moment. 🐾

Have a look at woopf.com 🐶

📱 get.askavet.com (iOS and Android)

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17/10/2026

This is genuinely one of the worst sets of teeth I’ve ever seen, but before anyone judges, the story behind it matters, and it’s a really important lesson. 🐾

Because the easy assumption is that the owner neglected this dog. The opposite is true. They look after this dog incredibly well. The problem is that this dog has serious heart disease, one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever seen, and that changes everything about how we can treat it.

Here’s the bind. Properly cleaning a dog’s teeth, especially when they’re this far gone, usually requires a general anaesthetic. But with heart disease this severe, anaesthetising this dog carries a genuine risk to its life. So the thing that would normally fix the problem isn’t safely on the table.

And it’s not as simple as just pulling the bad teeth out either. I could probably wiggle some of these loose and remove them, but in an older dog with a heart condition, that risks significant bleeding, which is the last thing you want to cause in a patient like this. So even the simpler options carry real danger.

This is the quiet reason I bang on about dental care so much: it’s so much easier to stay ahead of it than to fix it once a pet is older and may have other health conditions that limit what you can safely do. The best time to look after a pet’s teeth is well before you ever reach a situation like this one.

So if you’ve got a younger, healthy pet, regular dental care now, brushing, vet dental checks, and cleaning when it’s advised, is genuinely protecting their future. It means you’re far less likely to end up stuck between a serious dental problem and a condition that makes treating it dangerous.

Sometimes the kindest, safest option for a pet like this is careful management rather than risky intervention, and that’s a hard place for any loving owner to be.

🌐 askavet.com, free pet health tools and 24/7 vet support
📱 get.askavet.com (iOS and Android)
🐶 woopf.com
🐱 purrz.com

🐾

General veterinary education, not a substitute for advice about your individual pet.

We always talk about dogs and fireworks, but cats feel it just as hard, and because they hide fear so well, they’re ofte...
17/10/2026

We always talk about dogs and fireworks, but cats feel it just as hard, and because they hide fear so well, they’re often stressed long before you notice. 🐱

With age it gets worse. Senior cats find it harder to settle after a fright, so they need extra care on fireworks night.

The signs your cat is scared aren’t attitude problems, they’re fear:

🙀 Hiding and refusing to come out
🍽️ Skipping meals
🚽 Missing the litter box
🧼 Grooming that stops, or goes into overdrive
👀 Big pupils in normal light, hunched posture, tail tucked, pacing once the noise stops

Here’s your plan, five vet-approved tools:

🔌 A pheromone diffuser (like Feliway), plugged in 48 to 72 hours ahead where your cat spends the most time
💊 A calming L-theanine supplement, given 30 to 45 min before (test it on a quiet day first)
🧥 A snug wrap like a ThunderShirt, on 20 to 30 min before (not every cat tolerates it, so try early)
🏠 A quiet safe room away from windows, curtains closed, white noise running, and a worn t-shirt that smells like you
💧 Calming drops made for cats, mixed into a little food, with the dose checked by your vet

Stack them. One tool alone often isn’t enough, together they work far better.

And the one thing to never use: essential oils. ⚠️ Lavender, eucalyptus, tea tree, and “calming” blends can be toxic to cats. Skip the diffuser entirely.

If your cat is over 12, remember it doesn’t end at midnight. Older cats can stay unsettled for 24 to 48 hours, so watch for crying, litter box misses, or a low appetite the next day. Stay home if you can, your presence calms them. ❤️

Scared or sick and not sure which? You can chat to a certified vet on the Ask A Vet app for quick guidance. 📲

Download at get.askavet.com and use code DRDUNCAN.

Approved by Dr. Duncan Houston, emergency vet.

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17/10/2026

Can you see what I see here? I’d genuinely value your thoughts on this one. 🐾

This is a chest X-ray of an older dog, and I’ll be upfront, this one’s personal, because it’s a dog belonging to a good friend of mine. Up at the base of the heart (the top part of the heart), there’s a large, rounded object that’s caught my eye, and honestly, it’s not something I want to be there.

I’m putting this out to the vets and nurses in the community because I’d really like other eyes on it. If you can see something in that region too, I’d love to hear your differentials. And if you look at this and disagree with me entirely, please, tell me, because in this case I would genuinely love to be wrong.

Masses at the base of the heart can point to a few different things, and the imaging alone doesn’t give the full story. It’s exactly the kind of case where a second, third, and fourth opinion is worth having, and where further workup is what actually confirms or rules things out.

Beyond the clinical side, this is also a reminder of the human part of this job. Sometimes the patient on the table belongs to someone you care about, and you want the answer to be the good one just as much as they do.

So, vets and nurses, what do you see? Drop your thoughts below or send them through, I’m genuinely interested in the discussion on this one.

🌐 askavet.com, free pet health tools and 24/7 vet support
📱 get.askavet.com (iOS and Android)
🐶 woopf.com
🐱 purrz.com

🐾

General veterinary education and clinical discussion, not a substitute for advice about your individual pet.

16/10/2026

Does your dog treat every chew toy like a personal insult that must be destroyed? Finally, one built to fight back. 🐾

The Chewster Blocky Bone came from Duncan’s night shifts as an emergency vet, where he saw exactly what cheap “indestructible” chews really do: swallowed chunks, cracked teeth, and blockages. So he built the one chew he could hand a staffy owner without the dreaded warning speech. 💪

Why power chewers meet their match:

🦴 Dense, seamless, food-grade rubber, no stitching to unpick and nowhere to start the destruction
🦴 Blocky corners a big jaw can actually grip, so it tumbles instead of tearing
🥜 A treat hole at each end, stuff both with kibble, wet food, or xylitol-free peanut butter
🧊 Freeze it, and a five-minute snack becomes 20 to 40 minutes of licking and problem-solving
🦷 Deep grooves that work across the teeth and support dental health between brushes (not instead of)

Basically, it’s the single best tool for a dog that redecorates your house the moment it gets bored. The reviews? Staffies, kelpies and cattle dogs, aka the toughest critics in the business.

It comes in a few strengths and three sizes, so you can match it to your dog. Golden rule: pick the size they can’t fit fully in their mouth, and if you’re stuck between two, size up.

One honest note from Duncan, because he’s a vet first: no chew is truly indestructible, so supervise the chewing, check it after sessions, and only ever use xylitol-free peanut butter, xylitol is toxic to dogs. ⚠️

Have a look at woopf.com 🐶
📱 get.askavet.com (iOS and Android)

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16/10/2026

Is your dog pooping a bit of blood? First, take a breath, because this is genuinely one of the most common things I get asked about, and often it’s not as alarming as it looks. 🐾

A small amount of blood in a dog’s poo is actually pretty common. Usually it comes from the colon, the last part of the intestines, getting a bit inflamed. That inflammation can be triggered by something as simple as them licking or sniffing something they shouldn’t have, or by parasite control, like worming, not being fully up to date.

The key thing is to look at the amount and the frequency. A few little drops, once or twice a year, in a dog that’s otherwise bright, eating, drinking, and acting completely normal, is usually nothing to panic about and something you can keep an eye on. That’s the reassuring end of the spectrum.

But here’s where it changes. If there’s more blood than that, if it’s happening more often, or if it comes alongside other signs, your dog going off their food, not drinking, vomiting, or having a painful tummy, that’s a different picture entirely. That combination is genuinely worth getting checked, and I’d see a vet to work out what’s actually going on.

So the simple rule: a one-off few drops in a happy, healthy dog, monitor it. More than that, or blood plus other symptoms, don’t wait it out, get them seen.

And as always, staying on top of regular worming and parasite control quietly prevents a lot of these minor cases in the first place.

Has your dog ever had this, and what turned out to be the cause? 👇

🌐 askavet.com, free pet health tools and 24/7 vet support
📱 get.askavet.com (iOS and Android)
🐶 woopf.com
🐱 purrz.com

🐾

⚠️ Ongoing blood in the stool, or blood with other symptoms, warrants a vet visit. General veterinary education, not a substitute for advice about your individual pet.

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