I'm a journalist who writes regularly about medical issues for Your Dog, the newsletter for Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University.
For all of my stories, I not only interview medical experts but also look for owners of dogs that have the conditions and have gone for treatment. I'm interested in knowing how they discovered the problem, what treatments were tried (medical, surgical, dietary), and how successful they were.
So... I am currently doing a story on different diseases of the anal area -- not a topic people necessarily want to talk about in polite company but very common in many breeds and often difficult to deal with. Specifically I'm looking for:
- anal sac problems: Dogs whose sacs were impacted regularly, particularly common in small dogs
- perianeal fistulas: particularly common in German shepherds but also occurring in Irish setters and some Alpine breeds
- perinanal hernias: particularly common in male dogs that have not been neutered
The stories usually run pictures of any of the subjects of the interviews (and I promise, the pictures would be of your dog at his or her best; no butt photos)!
I'm new to this forum so I'm not sure where to go from here, but would like to conduct phone interviews with anyone willing to help. I wouldn't ask anyone to post a phone number here, but we can figure out the logistics on the forum.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!