For Referring Veterinarians

Alopecia X is a name given to a skin condition in the dog resulting in non-inflammatory hair loss. Other names used for the same condition have included adrenal sex hormone imbalance, wooly syndrome, coat funk, black skin disease, pseudo-cushings, and follicular growth dysfunction of plush coated breeds. I now call this alopecic condition hair cycle arrest (HCA), as this name describes what has happened; the hair cycle has stopped and there is a cessation…

  Echocardiography is the art of using ultrasound to view the structure and function of the heart in real time. Ultrasound is a highly informative, non-invasive, and safe diagnostic test in both human and veterinary medicine. This technique uses high frequency sound waves emitted from a hand-held probe to produce an ultrasound beam. This ultrasound beam is reflected from the tissues in the chest and heart and returns to the ultrasound probe to construct…

  The normal pacemaker of the heart lies in the heart’s right upper chamber. This structure, known as the sinus node, normally generates the heart’s electrical impulse. This impulse is then carried through the upper chambers and reaches a structure known as the AV node. Normally, the AV node is the only electrical connection between the upper and lower chambers of the heart, so it conducts the impulse down to the pumping chambers, which then…