The Illustrated Veterinary Guide for Dogs, Cats, Birds, & Exotic Pets

Covers pet selection and training, preventive medicine and dental care, nutrition and diet, diseases and their treatment, emergency first aid, breeding, and other topics

The Illustrated Veterinary Guide is a brilliantly conceived and expertly rendered reference. In one succinct volume, Chris C. Pinney, D.V.M., covers just about everything you might need to know about owning and caring for dogs, cats, and countless other animals. He covers birds, rabbits, and guinea pigs; hamsters, rats, and chinchillas; prairie dogs, hedgehogs, ferrets, and miniature potbellied pigs--plus reptiles, amphibians, tropical fish, and invertebrates. Whether your menagerie is restricted to Fluffy and Fido, or extends to tarantulas, hermit crabs, newts, and snakes, Pinney provides chapters on restraint, housing, nutrition, reproduction, preventive health care, and the diseases and disorders relevant to each species.

The dog and cat sections are naturally the most thorough, forming more than half the book. Pinney discusses how to choose the right dog and how to housebreak, socialize, and train him, then delves into preventive health care (nail trimming, weight control, and staving off parasites), elective surgeries (tail docking and ear trimming), and breeding your dog (from puberty and birthing to the care of neonatal puppies). Next come the infectious diseases (such as distemper, paravirus, kennel cough, and ringworm) and the parasitic diseases (such as scabies, tapeworm, and demodectic mange). Pinney's veterinary guide launches into all the internal systems (cardiovascular and respiratory, immune and digestive, urinary and reproductive, musculoskeletal, nervous, and endocrine) plus the doggy anatomy of skin and coat (integumentary system), eyes, and ears. Pinney explains the workings of each system, and the diseases that afflict them. There are few symptom charts, so you can't look up "vomiting" and see the associated diseases, though you can check the chapter on first aid for a quick guide to possible causes and seriousness. You can also identify the digestive system as the likely location, read about all the conditions and symptoms, and decide if tonsillitis, intestinal obstruction, or intussusception seems most likely.

The information provided by Pinney is all sound veterinary data, and the appendix on first aid for dogs and cats is excellent. But don't underestimate the value of the illustrations. An illustration of ringworm on a cat face is worth a thousand words when it comes to assessing if that's what your cat has, and mimicking the drawing of how to hold a pet snake is worlds easier than trying to apply written instructions to a restive boa. Some illustrations, such as the one of a cat in a thicket to illustrate feline nocturnal predatory habits, provide more eye candy than useful data. But there's no replacement for a picture of where to cut a bird's talon, how to restrain a lizard, or what a dog with impacted anal sacs looks like when it's scooting. If you like animals and want all your veterinary info in one place, Pinney's guide is a great one-volume resource. --Stephanie Gold