cPLI Test in Dogs: The Most Accurate Pancreatitis Marker Explained
Your dog's cPLI test came back flagged, and now you are staring at bands labeled normal, equivocal, and positive without much sense of what any of them mean for your dog.
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Pet Health Blog
High Lipase in Dogs: What It Means and Common Causes
Start With How Your Dog Is Acting High lipase in dogs sends most owners straight to the word pancreatitis, and that is a fair first guess. Pancreatitis in dogs is the condition most often tied to it, but kidney disease, Cushing’s disease, certain medications, and something your dog ate can also raise the number. Which […]
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Dog CBC Blood Test Explained: Understanding Every Result in Context
There is no such thing as a high CBC. The complete blood count is not one number but three separate counts, of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, each with its own reference range and its own reasons for drifting. So when a report gets described as a high CBC, one or more […]
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Dog CBC Values Chart: Normal Ranges Explained (Printable Guide)
A reference interval is a statistic, not a verdict. The laboratory measured a group of healthy dogs and drew a line around the middle 95% of them, which is worth knowing before reading a single flagged value, because it means a perfectly healthy dog can land slightly outside the range. The chart below collects the […]
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Infection vs Stress on a Dog CBC: How Vets Tell the Difference
Two dogs can come back from the laboratory with nearly the same white blood cell count and have almost nothing in common. One is fighting a bacterial infection somewhere. The other was frightened of the car ride, or is taking prednisone, or is sore from something unrelated. Elevated white blood cells show up in both, […]
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Can Abnormal CBC Results in Dogs Return to Normal?
Most abnormal CBC values in dogs do come back. That is the short answer, and it is worth having before anything else, because blood counts shift with hydration, stress, inflammation, infection, medications, and recovery from illness, and a great many of them drift back once the trigger is gone. Two things decide whether a particular […]
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Low Platelets in Dogs (Thrombocytopenia): Causes and Next Steps
Your dog's blood panel came back flagged for low platelets, and your dog may look completely fine, which makes the result more confusing, not less. This is one of the few numbers on a canine blood panel that can be wrong before anyone has read it. Platelets are not whole cells but small fragments. They […]
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High RBC in Dogs: Causes of a High Red Blood Cell Count
A high red blood cell count reads like a surplus. More cells, more oxygen carried, nothing obviously broken. Most of the time that is not what the number means. The red cells are usually the same red cells that were there last month, sitting in less fluid, so more of them turn up in every […]
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Anemia in Dogs: What Low Red Blood Cells Mean on Bloodwork
Anemia is one finding that splits in two the moment anyone looks closer. There are fewer red blood cells than there should be, that much the printout settles, but the bone marrow is either scrambling to replace them or it is not, and nearly everything that follows depends on which of those is true. Anemia […]
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Your dog’s Blood Results Show Low WBC: What is White Blood Cell Count?
A low white blood cell count on a dog’s bloodwork reads as though the immune system has been switched off. It has not. White blood cells can only go missing from a blood sample in three ways: the marrow can be making fewer of them, or they can be used up and destroyed faster than […]
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