DEAR DR. FOX: I am a fan -- you are an excellent columnist with much to offer.

I am a lifelong animal lover. I am also lucky enough to live on a tract of contiguous mature forest near Missouri's Cuivre River. I enjoy daily interaction with hundreds of my "pets" -- many wild species that happily live, breed and feed themselves. What a joy to watch them.

I feel that the true disgrace is not that so many unwanted animals die (as all do), but that so many people, ignorant of an animal's true needs, feel that they must "own" a living creature for their own pleasure. I don't get it. A rational look at the big picture shows the industry of providing designer pets for sale, plus all the commensurate problems, to be absurd on its face. We are creating an endless supply of pets who are doomed to be killed.

I have one rhetorical question for pet owners: How many times have you wished you could dash off somewhere for a few days, but for that adorable dependent pet waiting at home?

Pets are not for everyone, but not enough of us know that. Thank you, Dr. Fox, and keep up the great work. -- D.S., Troy, Missouri

DEAR D.S.: I appreciate your letter, but perhaps some readers may not embrace, or even understand, your concerns. My wife and I joke that we are "captives of our compassion" with the two feral cats we caught and rehabilitated; they cannot be boarded, nor could we adopt them out. We are bonded!

The pet supply industry spends a fortune touting the benefits of animal companionship for obvious reasons. We owe domesticated animals a huge debt of gratitude for how they have served our many needs since the beginning of civilization -- some have argued that they even helped civilize us. Now serving our emotional needs as companions, we are morally obligated to settle the score and make sure we can provide for their emotional needs and overall well-being. An honest appraisal of many people's lifestyles would indicate that they cannot. Keeping a dog alone in a crate all day, an increasingly common practice, is to trade the animal's unconditional love for the conditional, selfish love too prevalent in our own kind, which makes us the inferior species.

DEAR DR. FOX: My 4 1/2-year-old boxer-pit bull was recently diagnosed with lymphoma.

I kind of believe that a rabies vaccine triggered it. I took him to a new vet for an ear infection because he was tilting his head, and the vet prescribed Zeniquin. However, since our dog did not have a current rabies shot, she said she could not let me leave with him if I did not get him the shot that day. I should have known that you don't give a sick dog a shot (I'm not a fan of shots anyway).

About three weeks after the shot, he lost the ability to walk. He was dragging his front paws, tipping over and urinating on himself. I took him to another vet, who told us to see a neurologist and get him an MRI; she thought he had a brain fungus. The neurologist ordered X-rays and ultrasounds, and the day we had our MRI appointment, the office called us to tell us that he had a mass in his chest. The vet did more ultrasounds to get a better view of it, aspirated it and found that it was T-cell lymphoma.

He's on prednisone and doing OK for right now. But what I would like is for you to help me figure out if I'm crazy for thinking it was the rabies vaccine he got while was sick. -- A.P., Winston-Salem, North Carolina

DEAR A.P.: I see one possibility concerning the rabies vaccination, other than it being ill-advised to ever vaccinate a dog who is not in good health at the time.

It could be a very clear vaccinosis, which is an adverse reaction affecting the nervous system of the dog due to the neurotropic proteins in the vaccine and other additives (mercury and aluminum). With the dog's immune system thus compromised, a latent lymphoma problem may have been unmasked rather than actually caused by the vaccination. But more research on this consequence is called for.

The prednisone treatment is appropriate, and I would advise improving your dog's diet as per the wonderful insights in the book "Canine Nutrigenomics," by Dr. W. Jean Dodds and Diana R. Laverdure.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.)

DEAR DR. FOX: We have a 2-year-old indoor house cat. She was the sweetest thing for the first 1 1/2 year or so, but in the last six months, she has developed hyperesthesia.

Her back ripples, she bites at it and she tears like a crazed cat all around the house. It has changed her personality. Before this, she was the most social cat I had ever seen -- she wanted to be with us and was happy and playful. Now she is haunted.

Nothing changed in her life. She is still the only cat. We are an older couple without children in the house. Life is very routine, calm and ordered. She does have herpes, and we stopped giving her lysine, which may have helped just a little for a while -- or maybe we just wanted it to help. I don't know.

I do know that it is hard for me to accept that there is nothing that can be done for this poor little cat. I hope you might have some better news for me than I can glean on the Internet. -- T.O., Oklahoma City

DEAR T.O.: I have addressed this bizarre condition in this column, and you will find some answers on my website, DrFoxVet.com. But we need to work together on this because there are no simple solutions. Hearing from other readers who have found ways to alleviate this condition would be appreciated.

Sometimes we miss the obvious culprits that we think are safe, such as certain cat litters, chemical floor cleaners, room fragrance sprays and diffusers, laundry detergent, tick drugs and my personal worst offender -- flea collars!

Next, consider her diet and a possible food allergy or hypersensitivity. Check some of the better cat foods on my website and also my home-prepared recipe for cats.

The skin is a reactive surface to not only environmental allergens and toxic chemicals, which can harm cats' livers and kidneys, but can be an indicator of nutritional deficiencies, especially in omega-3 fatty acids, and intolerance to certain food ingredients.

Removing all fish from one of our cat's diet helped reduce his excessive grooming and evident skin hypersensitivity. The herb catnip also calms him down, as can a low dose of Valium or valerian root. Discuss this with your veterinarian and also the possibility of hyperactive thyroid disease, which will call for a blood test.

There are nutritional supplements that can have a calming effect in humans and other animals, including dogs and cats. PetzLife's @-Eaze, which contains L-Theanine, is one of several calming natural supplements on the market that I would urge you to try.

Keep me informed as to your progress with your poor cat so we can help others overcome this distressing malady.

ANIMAL FATALITIES ON AIRPLANES

The Department of Transportation has released its annual list of animal fatalities on United States airlines.

U.S. airlines reported 17 animal fatalities and 26 injuries in 2014, according to full-year data released by the Department of Transportation. United Airlines reported the most deaths and injuries, five and 13 respectively, followed by Alaska Airlines, which had three animal deaths and 11 injuries.

Most of the injuries involved dogs and cats bloodied and hurt as they tried to escape from their cages, and many of the fatality reports involved animals that managed to escape from transport cages and were hit by vehicles at airports. Other major causes of death were underlying health conditions aggravated by the stress of travel.

From 2010 to 2013, Delta Airlines reported the greatest number of incidents of animals who died, were injured or lost during travel, followed closely by Alaska. Some airlines do not accept short-nosed or snub-nosed dogs such as pugs and English bulldogs because the stress of flight is particularly acute for those breeds.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.com.)

DEAR DR. FOX: Some 50 years ago, we adopted a dog from a family who was going to destroy her. We agreed to have her for a week and see how it worked out. Tammy was about a year old and already spayed. In those days, dogs were not required to have shots or a license.

All her life, we fed our Tammy Daily Dog Food from the A&P. She lived to be 19 and never saw the inside of a vet's office until her final visit, when it was obviously time to say goodbye. I seriously doubt whether better nutrition would have prolonged her life or made it any healthier. -- B.B., Fairfield, Connecticut

DEAR B.B.: Fifty years ago, manufactured dog foods contained mainly whole-food ingredients rather than ever more highly processed and denatured human food and beverage industry byproducts, additives and preservatives. The food had very few -- if any -- pesticide residues, and certainly no genetically modified organisms. While they were often too high in grains, they came from better soils than the nutrient-deficient ones of today.

Most crops that are not certified organic now come from depleted soils and finish up on our plates and in pet foods. Most dogs adapted to the high cereal content, along with table scraps, which were generally plentiful when most folks cooked meals from scratch. The composition of dog food was also low in fine particle processed gluten/lectin elements from highly processed grains, which can harm dogs' dental health and cause digestive and intestinal problems.

Fifty years ago, there were fewer pure breeds and "designer dogs," whose genetics now call for special diets, opening up the field of nutrigenomics and the pet food industry's lucrative special prescription diets market. Annual veterinary wellness evaluations are now called for, especially for pure breeds. As for vaccinations, much suffering from distemper and parvovirus has been greatly reduced in the canine population, though some pure breeds in particular have occasional, serious adverse reactions, called vaccinosis.

Veterinary hospitals, boarding kennels and groomers' insistence on up-to-date full vaccination records and vaccination regulations against rabies have certainly helped reduce the incidence of contagious canine diseases, but it brings with it various health problems.

DEAR DR. FOX: After Christmas, we took our 13-year-old Labrador-Rottweiler mix for her yearly checkup. We've been going to this office for approximately three years. I questioned the vet regarding my dog, Reille, getting the rabbi (sic) shot due to her age, but went ahead since the vet said it wouldn't bother her (and she said it was the law). A week later, Reille had a huge lump in the location where the shot was given. The vet says the big lump was a tumor and not a cyst, as I thought. She thought the tumor was cancerous, but said she'd have to get a biopsy to know for sure. We decided not to have the biopsy due to her age.

Could the shot have caused this mass? Now she has difficulty walking. She also sleeps all the time, but she still eats a lot and goes outside to potty.

I'm just concerned that this was caused by the shot. Can you clarify for me? -- D.G., Fenton, Missouri

DEAR D.G.: First, let me correct your error and give an amusing anecdote: It is "rabies," not "rabbi." At an international conference in Boston in the 1980s, where I gave a lecture on animal rights and the horrors of factory farming, an Indian veterinarian gave a lecture discussing rabies in India and said several times, "we are fighting rabbis and we must eradicate rabbis." He was disconcerted when some people began to laugh, but apologized when the moderator intervened and gave him the correct pronunciation.

I regret the experience that you and your old dog have gone through with this vaccination, which is mandatory under the law, but can be given every three years rather than annually. The injection site the veterinarian used is not unusual, but the reaction is. It could be a rare cancer called a fibrosarcoma, which is more common but still of low incidence, at the vaccine injection site. Fibrosarcoma tends to occur more often in cats than dogs.

Sorry to give you the probable bad news, which only a biopsy will confirm.

MORE PET FOOD & TREAT ISSUES

-- The Food and Drug Administration just released a jerky treat investigation update. For more than eight years, pets have been dying and sickened from Chinese jerky treats, and the FDA still can't determine why. The "adverse event reports" total more than "5,800 dogs, 25 cats, three people, and include more than 1,000 canine deaths."

-- J.J. Fuds expanded the list of pet food products it is recalling because of potential contamination with salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes. The recall now covers all products and lots of J.J. Fuds Beef Tender Chunks, Chicken Tender Chunks and Duckling Tender Chunks pet foods. The affected products were distributed to wholesale and retail stores in Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

-- A nationwide class-action lawsuit was recently filed in California charging Nestle Purina with breach of warranty, negligence and negligent misrepresentation (among other things). Visit truthaboutpetfood.com/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-beneful-dog-food/ for more information.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.com.)