Last week, any hour that I was not sitting in class, I found
myself isolated at my desk in my bedroom. On Wednesday evening, I
was studying small animal dermatology (for one of my two tests that
week). As I was repeating the four types of feline allergy/pruritus
reaction patterns, I heard the jingling of my dog's collar as he
scratched his face with his back leg. This is a common noise that
usually doesn't alarm me; however, that night I happened to be
studying dermatology. You see, as vet students, we have an awful
habit of projecting whatever conditions we're learning about onto
our animals. I actually heard from a doctor at the student health
center that med students become hypochondriacs too, but that's a
different story…
As I listened to the jangle of the tags on Wheeler's collar, I
thought to myself, "Why is my dog so itchy?" The longer the noise
continued, the further my thought process progressed. "My dog has
to be pruritic (itchy) for ...
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