DEAR DR. FOX: Thank you sincerely for your column on the disappearance of frogs.

Having lived in South Florida all of my 56 years, I have noticed a developing deficit in the frog and lizard populations -- a fairly recent phenomenon and rapidly accelerating. Growing up in a relatively undeveloped area of West Palm Beach, we had bufos, tree frogs and tadpoles galore, to the degree that we came home from vacation one year to find our pool black with baby frogs.

I remember the mosquito trucks with their flashing yellow lights driving through the streets at dusk, fogging the neighborhood with pesticide, while we kids ran behind them and played in the mist with glee. Nobody stopped us.

The flies disappeared. Wonderful! The fireflies were gone. Who noticed but us kids?

Then the huge bufos who amused us by eating the dog food thinned out. Nobody was paying attention.

Ten years ago, I fashioned a small frog pond in my yard, and I would wake each morning to find two or three fairly large toads lounging in it, or a new crop of tadpoles. Haven’t seen one in almost five years now.

I check my pool for “swimmers” every morning. I used to find at least one every day. Not anymore.

We used to have resident tree frogs growing large around the outer walls and leaving tracks on our windows. (One actually jumped onto my face when I was watering a hanging plant one day. I miss that guy.)

The small lizards have been displaced by a larger species with curly tails that I do not recognize.

My point is that something has gone seriously wrong with our ecological management. I am not a scientist, just an observer of nature. What I am seeing is truly disturbing. -- D.K.C., Tequesta, Florida

DEAR D.K.C.: Yes, all of this is very disturbing and is a consequence of a combination of fear, ignorance and vested interests.

I hammer away as best I can to bring sound science and reason to bear on our relationships with and treatment of all our relations, human and nonhuman. Our disregard for the insect kingdom in particular is part of our undoing, our fall from grace. The domino effect means insectivorous birds, bats, reptiles and other creatures starve to death, and so may we soon, as we lose essential insect pollinators of our food crops while poisoning ourselves with pesticides in the process.

DEAR DR. FOX: My 7-year-old dog has to have her anal glands cleaned out quite often.

She had them done recently and is already sliding across the floor as though she is hurting. Could there be something wrong? -- M.K., St. Louis, Missouri

DEAR M.K.: This common condition in dogs can be aggravated by regular manual squeezing to empty the anal gland sacks. Possible infection, inflammation and even food allergies all need to be considered, as well as cancer developing in one of the glands.

Talk to the attending veterinarian or seek a second opinion, ideally with a holistic veterinary practitioner. To locate one in your area, go to ahvma.org.

U.K. KENNEL CLUB DISCOURAGES BREEDING FOR EXAGGERATED FEATURES

The Crufts Kennel Club warned judges not to award prizes to severely brachycephalic dogs at the club’s March show. Judges have been criticized in the past for awarding prizes to dogs with exaggerated features, including a German shepherd with an abnormally sloped hind end. Let’s hope other countries, including the United States, address this serious ethical and animal rights issue. (The Telegraph, March 7)

ACCEPTING SNUB-NOSED BREEDS FOR TRANSPORT PUT UNITED IN THE HOT SEAT

Eighteen of the 24 animal deaths that occurred on U.S. airlines last year happened on United Airlines flights. While the number seems disproportionate, United not only carried significantly more animals than any other airline, but also accepted flat-nosed, or brachycephalic, breeds that others refuse to transport due to the inherent risk. United has since changed its policies, implementing breed and size restrictions.

TRICLOSAN: A UBIQUITOUS ANTIBACTERIAL HEALTH THREAT

Triclosan (TCS) is a high-volume chemical used as an antimicrobial ingredient in more than 2,000 consumer products, such as toothpaste, cosmetics, kitchenware and children’s toys, as well as dogs’ toys, beds and shampoos. It is also incorporated into plastic pet food bag liners, and in plastic wrapping for meat and poultry, which can finish up in pet foods.

Scientists recently reported that brief exposure to TCS, at relatively low doses, causes low-grade colonic inflammation, increases colitis, and exacerbates colitis-associated colon cancer in mice. (H. Yang and associates, Science Translational Medicine, May 30, 2018) These research findings add yet another concern to what may cause dysbiosis and inflammatory bowel disease in dogs and cats.

This is an accountability call to pet food manufacturers to stipulate to their ingredient providers that all plastic wrappings on discarded meat and poultry parts be removed before processing, and plastic liners of dry pet foods and wrapping of frozen pet foods are TCS-free. Chronic exposure and ingestion of TCS may also contribute to skin and thyroid problems and food allergies.

For more information on this antibiotic, see Pat Thomas’ “The Dawn of the Domestic Superbug” at theecologist.org/2005/jul/01/dawn-domestic-superbug.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 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.net.)

DEAR DR. FOX: I just have to say that I take offense to the way you refer to rescuers who take in puppy-mill dogs as “rescues,” in quotes, as if they are not legitimate.

I work for a 501c3 rescue that gets retired breeding dogs and puppies with defects from puppy mills. In most cases, the group has to pay a nominal fee to the puppy mill to get the dog, and then invest hundreds of dollars in medical care for each one. They need to be spayed or neutered, have shots, a microchip, and dental exams. In some cases, they need lifesaving surgeries; they recently did an open-heart surgery for one puppy. Many have untreated diseases and need lots of medical testing, not to mention medication.

These dogs come in unsocialized, never having lived in a home or been touched gently by a human ever in their lifetime. These dogs take months to rehabilitate and get healthy enough, physically and mentally, to be adopted -- almost always at a huge loss to the rescuer when you consider the money spent to get the dog well (compared with the adoption fee).

To insinuate that rescuers who do this aren’t real rescuers is demeaning and very wrong. There are many rescuers out there who have “great reputations,” but who only take in young, healthy dogs, give them minimal vet care, then adopt them out for high fees -- making HUGE profits. It is essentially dog-flipping. They adopt out in high volume, and they don’t have a decent application or contract, or do home checks. At the same time, many wonderful rescuers are getting bullied and harassed online for their practice of getting dogs from puppy mills, whether it’s from dog auctions or directly from the mill, because there are people out there who don’t consider it a true rescue.

The fact is, if all of these types of rescues could work together, they could save more dogs, and things would be much better than all the bullying and harassment that goes on now. The reputable rescuers who take in dogs from puppy mills provide full disclosure; the adopters know exactly where the dog came from. It’s not a big secret. There’s room for ALL kinds of rescues, and the bottom line should be SAVING DOGS.

If you can look at a mama dog recently pulled from a puppy mill -- filthy, covered in mats and fleas, with rotting teeth, ear infections, stomach drooping from being overbred, with splayed feet from living in a wire cage, terrified of people because no one has ever treated her well -- and think that saving that dog is not a real rescue, you are very wrong. -- M.M., Salt Lake City, Utah

DEAR M.M.: I totally agree with you. For those people looking to provide a dog with a forever home, your letter establishes guidelines to ask about the origin and history of the pup or adult dog they are considering adopting. It will be the basis of an article I must now write on this issue.

Any and all background information concerning our wonderful dog, Kota -- part Australian red heeler, whom we adopted from Minnesota’s Animal Humane Society -- was flatly denied to us. But we were able to find some information thanks to the phone number on her anti-rabies certificate. She had come from Alabama and was released to us for $400 as a “healthy dog,” only for us to spend more on testing her for heartworm and treating her for hookworm, whipworm and giardia. Parasites were present in her at the time of adoption, putting us and other dogs in our community at risk.

Your communication helps clarify a complex issue. Large commercial dog-breeding operations should be abolished, or at least fully inspected by trained veterinary humane officers. This would be preferable to inspections by departments of agriculture, equivalent to the ones done on livestock facilities and those poor captive mink, foxes and other inhabitants of wild fur-farm ranches. Factory livestock and poultry factory farms should all be closed down for humane, as well as health, reasons.

Rescuing the long-incarcerated and traumatized breeding stock and pups from puppy mills is praiseworthy, but will have to continue without end until this large-scale commercial exploitation is outlawed. All concerned should read Kim Kavin’s seminal book, “The Dog Merchants.”

I was one of the first to investigate and report on puppy mills with dog writer Herm David back in the early 1970s. Things have only become worse since then. Progress in animal protection has been limited by vested interests on many fronts where animals are regarded as mere commodities, as per my book “Inhumane Society: The American Way of Exploiting Animals.” America will only be great when all creatures are given equal and fair consideration.

CALIFORNIA OFFICAL WARNS PUBLIC ABOUT FLEA-TYPHUS LINK

A San Diego woman who has an indoor-outdoor cat and recalls being bitten by fleas was hospitalized for murine typhus.

“Keeping fleas off your pets and out of your homes is the best prevention for murine typhus,” said San Diego County Deputy Public Health Officer Dr. Sayone Thihalolipavan. (The San Diego Union-Tribune, 6/1)

To repeat myself ad nauseam: Cats should be kept indoors for their own health and well-being, as well as our own. Every municipality needs to put effective public education and legislation into action to help achieve this responsible community goal. Our nearby Animal Humane Society here in Minnesota releases cats in midwinter to fend for themselves, and we have one hungry one on our property right now. Cats can transmit many diseases fatal to humans -- probably more than any average rat, mouse, bird or insect they may kill for food.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 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.net.)

DEAR DR. FOX: I just read your answer to the woman who asked if you believe that “in heaven, we will meet up with all of our loved ones,” including animals. Though an agnostic, I was really anticipating your response, since my beloved husband died suddenly a year ago, and our 18-year-old cat, Magic, died three months later of hyperthyroidism and diabetes.

Although I was an English major who studied Milton and then earned a doctorate in school psychology, I could not interpret your reply, which seemed equivocal, compared to your customary clear, definitive answers.

I appreciate your thoughtful exposition, yet still wonder if you could perhaps try again, so that the questioner and I may receive a “yes” or “no” to her simple question about your beliefs. -- C.S., Leonardo, New Jersey

DEAR C.S.: As it is in heaven, so it is on Earth when we embrace all we behold.

Jesus of Nazareth purportedly advised we must first become as children before we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. As poet William Wordsworth wrote, the child is indeed father to the man.

My understanding is that, upon death, an individuated consciousness, or spirit, becomes part of the universal consciousness or Great Spirit of Native American Indian tradition. In that illimitable realm, we will become one again with all we embraced on Earth as individual souls.

I incorporate the animistic and pantheistic aspects of indigenous, “pagan” religious traditions under the banner of panentheism: God in all and all in God. The empathosphere is one integrating component of this Taoist view -- the I-Thou of philosopher Martin Buber and the Unified Field theory of metaphysics.

So I make no pronouncements on what I believe about what we each may or may not experience after we die, including meeting up with our deceased loved ones, whether human or animal. What about the many we directly and indirectly harmed? I recall, in my early years as a nationwide speaker, promoting animal rights while some attendees were wearing the furs of the relatives of their dogs and cats. They took offense when I mentioned this issue in my presentation.

Until there is atonement, there can be no “at-one-ment.” But a broken heart can be an open heart, and I contend that compassion is the greatest power on Earth with which we humans are enabled and ennobled. The rise of mammon and what Pope Francis calls the “tyranny of anthropocentrism” may be quelled by a more evolved human consciousness and civilization, but only if translated rationally and empathetically into reverence for all life. Until then, the hell on earth that we make for animals, and many of our own kind, will be without end.

(For more details, see my book “The Boundless Circle: Caring for Creatures and Creation.”)

STOP WILD HORSES FROM BEING SHIPPED TO JAPAN FOR SLAUGHTER VIA CANADIAN AIRPORTS

American wild horses, as well as Canadian horses, are often shipped as “live exports” via Canadian airports in Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg to Japan to be slaughtered for a disturbing dish called basashi: thinly-sliced raw horse flesh.

There is a petition against this practice, which claims that before being slaughtered, these horses are not provided with food or water for up to 36 hours, as permitted by the law within Canada.

If you would like to see these airports stop their participation in this brutal trade, please take a moment to sign the petition. Go to onegreenplanet.org for details.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 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.net.)