Photos by Mark Evans

Dr. Beth Guerra, an emergency veterinarian at Animal Critical Care and Emergency Services (ACCES) hospital in Renton, answers this week's questions about bloody diarrhea. It is the first of a two-part series.

Question: What causes bloody diarrhea in dogs?

Answer: Bloody stool or diarrhea is common in veterinary medicine and often constitutes an emergency because it is so alarming. Blood can show up in the stool in two ways -- as hematochezia, which is the presence of bright red blood with normal feces or diarrhea, or as melena, which is digested blood that often gives the stool a dark, tarry appearance.

Question: What is the difference (aside from the way they look)?

Answer: Dark, tarry melena represents blood that has come from the upper GI tract, such as the stomach or first part of the small bowel. It essentially has been "digested" as it moves through the intestine and, therefore, appears dark and sticky.

Conversely, bright red hematochezia represents blood from the descending colon, rectum, or anus, and appears more like actual blood.

Question: What can cause the bright red bleeding in hematochezia?

Answer: There are myriad causes that can span all ages and breeds. A thorough history and physical exam should always be performed on any patient that has hematochezia. It is also important to determine if the stool has been normal or if the pet has been having diarrhea.

External causes include masses or abscesses around the anus or anal glands that are brittle or have ruptured, trauma, passing of a foreign body, hernias or fistulas. Internal causes include colitis, stress, constipation, certain infectious organisms such as campylobacter or clostridium, parasites, masses or polyps, a prolapsed rectum or blood-clotting problems.

Question: What causes the dark, sticky bleeding in melena?

Photo by Mark Evans

The Food and Drug Administration will host a webinar this week about non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, known as NSAIDs, that are specifically created to help pets with their aches and pains.

The FDA warns that they can cause side effects in dogs similar to those in humans, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fluid retention, kidney failure, liver failure, and ulcers.

The FDA will host the webinar "Advice to Dog Owners Whose Pets Take NSAIDs" on Wednesday at 11 a.m. PST. The FDA will discuss the broad overview of the science behind NSAIDs for pets, the potential side effects that are possible and what you should do as a pet owner if you suspect your pet is having a reaction to veterinary NSAIDs.

To participate in the webinar, go here.

Have you ever had one of those special animals in your life that you couldn't have lived without? Who taught you more about living and loving than any other worldly creature?

These are heart dogs, once-in-a-lifetime treasures that nest in our hearts and stay forever. In a fitting celebration of them this Valentine's Day week, The Seattle Times pet blog asked seven local dog people to remember and honor their heart dogs in essays and photos.

Nancy Bartley is a Seattle Times reporter. She lives with a rescue Doberman, Krista, who also loves to hike, and a cat, Sparks.

By Nancy Bartley

He wanted a Doberman. I was content with a cat.

He fell in love with a leggy, black pup with saucers for paws. I wasn't so sure about this lumbering youngster who buried my socks among the raspberry plants, presented visitors with offerings from my laundry basket and enthusiastically greeted everyone by putting her paws on their shoulders and licking their faces.

Guess, as my son named the pup, would become a dog who not only stole socks, shoes and underwear, but hearts as well.

Although my son promised to come home from college every weekend to take care of her, within a few weeks he fell in love again. This time the big brown eyes and dark hair belonged to a pre-law student he'd eventually marry.

Guess would become mine, oddball name and all. And I'd be stuck answering the question over and over.

"What's your dog's name?''

"Guess.''

"Fido? Blackie?''

"No, Guess.''

"I am guessing.''

Guess was a rapidly growing powerhouse who turned somersaults in obedience class when I tried to get her to walk on a leash, who coughed up a rock in the middle of class and loved to sit up in the front seat, one paw resting on my shoulder, as I drove down the road.

Despite the errors of her ways, she rapidly became my best friend, my protector and companion in my empty nest. As a newly divorced woman, I was having a difficult time adjusting to life without my husband, stepchildren or my college-student son.

Guess was less than a year old when she broke her toe while chasing squirrels in the back yard. It seemed like it would be a simple fix. The vet put a cast on her that went from her toe to elbow. She chewed it off. He put it back, gave her a sedative, which required me to put her in a crate so the drunken Dobie wouldn't hurt herself. She dismantled it once again. Back to the vet we went. Again and again.

She was supposed to wear it for several months, but we were not making progress. We added an Elizabethan collar. She ran into the house, bent it and chewed the cast again.

Gradually, the time passed, and we were closing in on the time when her toe would be healed when once again she chewed up her cast. I became innovative; I slipped her leg into a pantyhose sock, bracing the toe with poly fiber. Then I supported her leg with old running shoe inserts, wrapped it with elastic bandage and duct tape. I put her in her crate, gave her a sedative and went for a 30- minute walk. When I returned the cast was gone. Not a shred was left. That night she began to vomit.

A trip to the emergency vet followed. Some $2,000 later she was her old self. And forever after when someone asked about her name, I said she was Guess, as in "Guess, what the dog ate?''

Have you ever had one of those special animals in your life that you couldn't have lived without? Who taught you more about living and loving than any other worldly creature? These are heart dogs, once-in-a-lifetime treasures that nest in our hearts and stay forever. In a fitting celebration of them this Valentine's Day week, The Seattle Times pet blog asked seven local dog people to remember and honor their heart dogs in essays and photos.

Kathy Sdao is an Associate Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist. She trained dolphins at the University of Hawaii and for the U.S. Navy and was a whale- and walrus-trainer at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium . Since 1998, Kathy has owned Bright Spot Dog Training, which provides behavior-modification services for pet owners. She teaches about a dozen workshops annually, for trainers around the world. Her first book, "Plenty in Life Is Free: Reflections on Dogs, Training and Finding Grace", will be released next month. She is pictured above with Effie.

By Kathy Sdao

The first thing you should know about Effie is that her fur is so soft it will startle you. You'll be compelled to rub your palms along her sides, slowly, and to press your cheek against her velveteen ear. As you lean in, you'll catch a whiff of her animal scent, an intoxicating mix of moist earth, turkey meatloaf and fleece beds, and you'll run the risk of having your face pummeled with her big slick tongue.

The results of DNA testing assert Effie is part Brittany spaniel and part Labrador retriever - a Blab. Or, if you prefer, a Litany. But with her chestnut patches and ticking scattered on a polar-bear-white background, she'd easily blend in with any pack of foxhounds milling about the moor, waiting for the hunt.

The next thing you should know about Effie is that she saved my life.

When husband No. 2 announced to me that monogamy wasn't really his thing after all, in so similar a way as did husband No. 1 nearly fifteen years earlier that it seemed they had compared notes, I plummeted into a well of despair.

This surprise revelation occurred on Sept. 10, 2001, and so the next morning my anguish magnified a hundredfold as the Twin Towers fell. In the space of twelve hours, previously unimaginable events had devastated my sanguine reliance on a stable marriage and a secure country.

I was a wreck. I tried to swaddle the shards of my shattered heart in a bubble-wrap made up of friends, family and faith. Yet I could not accept the reality that my husband, now living with another woman, was really leaving me.

One winter night at 2 a.m., sleepless in Tacoma yet again, the relentless humiliation and looming loneliness eclipsed any sense of light. Hopeless and so exhausted that breathing seemed too much work, I made a decision to pool all the prescription pills I could find in my house.

Have you ever had one of those special animals in your life that you couldn't have lived without? Who taught you more about living and loving than any other worldly creature? These are heart dogs, once-in-a-lifetime treasures that nest in our hearts and stay forever. In a fitting celebration of them this Valentine's Day week, The Seattle Times pet blog asked seven local dog people to remember and honor their heart dogs in essays and photos.

Ranny Green, longtime pets columnist and desk editor at The Seattle Times, retired in 2008. He continues to be involved in pet-rescue work and is on the board of directors of Noah's Wish and Angel on a Leash. He writes a monthly feature and dog-book reviews for www.seattlekennelclub.org. He and his wife live in Tacoma with a 12-year-old German shepherd, Andy, and a 9-year-old Pembroke Welsh corgi, Trudy, both rescue dogs. He is pictured above with Abbe.

By Ranny Green

Abbe, my little Southern gal, was a life changer and yet an aberration of sorts. My wife, Mary, and I have always been big-dog people, owning German shepherds, a golden retriever and a former racing greyhound, all rescues.

But when I traveled to Slidell, La., in 2005 to file stories for The Times on pet rescue in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this little sheltie-corgi mix won my heart in a shelter holding more than 1,000 dogs and cats.

Working for and writing about Noah's Wish's incredible rescue efforts was my task at hand. That included dog walking, cleaning cages and assorted other tasks. Luck put me in Abbe's (that was a name we gave her at home) corner of the facility, so I walked her several times daily. Somehow this little gal and I bonded, and when it was time to return home about two weeks later, I sought permission and signed documents to bring her along.

A couple of days before I arrived in Slidell, she had been fished from the brackish water in town, by animal-control authorities, with no identification of any sort. And during my Slidell stay, no one had come to the shelter looking for her, either.

Yet, when it came time to leave for Seattle, I had to sign Noah's Wish paperwork agreeing to return the 6-year-old, 26-pound dog to her rightful owner should that individual come forth. Another Seattle volunteer agreed to do the same with another dog.

Have you ever had one of those special animals in your life that you couldn't have lived without? Who taught you more about living and loving than any other worldly creature? These are heart dogs, once-in-a-lifetime treasures that nest in our hearts and stay forever. In a fitting celebration of them this Valentine's Day week, The Seattle Times pet blog asked seven local dog people to remember and honor their heart dogs in essays and photos.

Veteran pet behaviorist and author Steve Duno has to date authored 19 books and scores of magazine and web articles. Formerly a teacher in New York City and Los Angeles, he now lives in Seattle with his family and an ever-changing assortment of rescued pets. He is pictured above with Lou.

By Steve Duno

Picture if you will, a 34-year-old New Yorker, his only pet to date a parakeet named "Chipper," an ornery bird who'd escape his cage and circle the apartment, drop his ordnance, then return to his cell to savor his tiny victory.

This 34-year-old, with no dog experience save a weekly Lassie homage, should arguably have been the last person on earth to be blessed with the gift of the world's greatest dog. But serendipity is a mocking goddess; she was determined to have her way.

So it was in the winter of 1989, when alongside Highway 101, near the town of Willits, Calif., I stopped my car to check out some stray dogs.

Born the feral offspring of guard dogs on a Mendocino marijuana grow, I saw Lou, a 6-month-old Rottweiler/Shepherd mix, porpoising up a grassy hill, following a pack of strays up to the tree line. As they disappeared into the pines, I whistled, just to see what would happen.

Instead of following his brethren into oblivion, Lou scampered down that hill like a Looney Tunes character and did a perfect soldier sit right in front of me, there on the shoulder of Highway 101.

Gaunt, with an infected neck wound, Lou was littered with ticks. As I petted him, fleas leapt off his head and tickled the palm of my hand like champagne bubbles. But there was something about him -- a charisma -- that called to me.

As cars and trucks whizzed by, he gazed up at me with Garbo eyes, and I questioned what to do with this skeletal flea bag.

I of course carted him back to Los Angeles, to my rented house, which, true to Lou's feral form, was destroyed post haste. Though soft, sweet and ever sentient, Lou was used to raiding garbage cans, chasing down squirrels and living the hobo life; he didn't quite get domesticity.