All Animals Medical Center is constantly striving to bring the most up to date technology into our practice in order to better diagnose and treat our patients.  Endoscopy is used in the human medical field very successfully and with good reason.  Who can argue with less pain, minimal recovery time and fewer complications?  Not us and certainly not your pet!  We offer endoscopy for a variety of procedures. 

If your pet has ever eaten something they were not supposed to, had a fox tail lodged in its nose,  joint problems, bladder or urinary problems or a blockage of some sort these can be resolved more quickly and easily with endoscopy, whereas in the past surgery would have been required.  What is the difference between surgery and endoscopy?  Veterinary endoscopy is a minimally invasive technique for performing procedures through natural openings in the body or through one or more tiny holes rather than through large incisions.  A tiny camera is used to help navigate and the Drs. can see the images projected on a screen. 

I was amazed while witnessing a tricky surgery on a bird of prey that had eaten something shot with lead.  The bird was slowly being poisoned by the lead inside its stomach.  A major surgery to open up the bird would have been too risky.  Instead the bird was sedated and the Drs. used endoscopy to investigate.  Tiny pieces of lead shot were slowly revealed and removed one by one with the smallest tweezers I had ever seen.  Upon examination of the lead that had looked like the size of pencil erasers on screen I discovered that some were barely larger than the head of a pin.  It would have been a long and tedious surgery without the aid of the endoscope with more risk to the patient.  Thanks to Dr. Molnar and Dr. Milliken the bird made a full recovery and was released back into the wild.  Once again proving the skill of our Drs. and the wonders of endoscopy.

Nuts for Mutts is a 5K walk-a-thon that raises funds for three incredible organizations: New Leash on Life Animal Rescue, The Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center and The Calabasas Rotary Club.  Each organization has something different and meaningful to offer to our community.  Funds raised go towards important outreach programs like the Annual Thanksgiving Dinner that feeds over 600 seniors and after school programs for kids.  The walk also gives funds to rescue dogs who would otherwise be euthanized in order to rehabilitate them into forever homes as well as train them as therapy dogs for children and adults.

This was a great opportunity for the team at All Animals Medical Center to show our support for the community and enjoy a beautiful day with our dogs - so we jumped at the chance.  As a team we raised over $500 in donations and contributed a gift basket full of awesome goodies that would make any dog's tail wag!  There were some celebrity sightings on our walk and plenty of "paws stations" for the dogs to rest and hydrate.  We would encourage you to sign up for next year.  Visit www.nutsformutts.org for more information.  Look for pictures soon!

We would like to wish our clients a safe and happy 2010.  We will be closing at 2 p.m. on New Years Eve and we will be closed New Years Day to allow our staff to celebrate with their families.  As always we will have rotating staff here at the hospital to take excellent care of all of our "campers" while their families are away.  Keep in mind pets are not big fans of fireworks and loud noises which typically go with ringing in the New Year.  Please provide your pet(s) with an option to escape from all the noise makers and don't forget cats love to eat streamers and other sparkly items.  Here's to a fantastic 2010!

AllAnimalsVets.com has just been redesigned, and we're still putting the final touches on the new look. What do you think? We are working on more features and adding new content all the time, so be sure to check back here often. Here's some of what's in store:

- Featured Pet! We're going to show off photos and profiles of some of the great pets we get to see in our office.

- Shop. We'll make it easier for you to refill a prescription or order food or other supplies... right from our website!

- Giving Back. Drs. Molnar and Milliken are known for their generous volunteer work, and this section will highlight some of their efforts and give more information about working with them.