Vital Signs — Tuesday, October 27, 2026

27 Oct 2026 — 2 min read

"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking." — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

A Tuesday reminder that the day's tone is set less by the caseload than by how you meet it.

Editor's Pick

VETmAb Biosciences Announces Positive Clinical Proof-of-Concept Results for Long-Acting Anti-IL-23 Antibody in Canine Chronic Inflammatory Enteropathy — In a small pilot study, 77.8% of dogs on the anti-IL-23 antibody VMB-C001a were treatment successes versus 30.0% on placebo, and the drug is now eligible for the FDA's expanded conditional approval pathway. Why it matters: there is no approved therapy for canine chronic inflammatory enteropathy, a condition estimated to affect 1.7 million U.S. dogs, so a targeted biologic here could eventually replace long-term steroids for many of those patients.

Nearly One in Three Pets Received Antibiotics at Veterinary Teaching Hospitals, New Study Finds — 30.4% of dogs and cats evaluated at 31 veterinary teaching hospitals received at least one antibiotic, down from 36.5% in a 2020 survey. Takeaway: even teaching hospitals still lean heavily on surgical prophylaxis and broad-spectrum drugs, so a quick review of your own surgical and urinary protocols is the highest-yield stewardship step.

VETARYS Announces Partnership with Antigenesis Biologics to Develop a Combination Immunotherapy to Treat Canine Cancers — VETARYS and Antigenesis Biologics are developing a fusion-protein combination immunotherapy for solid tumors in dogs, aiming for a subcutaneous treatment primary-care vets could give rather than referring every cancer case to the too-few oncology specialists.

viggoVet Introduces the Intelligent Veterinary Platform, Bringing Clinical Super Intelligence into Veterinary Practice — viggoVet's new platform bundles record summaries, dictation, dental charting, anesthesia decision support and scheduling into one clinical-intelligence layer that can sit alongside your existing software or replace it, with a 60-day free trial running through January 1.

Honnas Veterinary in Austin Explains How Client Feedback Shapes Staff Training — A fast-growing, five-doctor Austin practice turns every client complaint into a training session: log the feedback, find the root cause, and train to it, pairing those stories with volume and staffing numbers so one-off gripes don't get mistaken for patterns.

New World Screwworm Found in US Wildlife for the First Time — USDA confirmed the first U.S. wildlife case of New World screwworm in a hunter-harvested Texas elk on October 21, alongside a new New Mexico cattle case, bringing the U.S. total to 59 detections since June with expanded wildlife surveillance now underway.
USDA Continues Phased Reopening of Southern Border Ports for Livestock Imports — APHIS reopened the Columbus, New Mexico cattle port on October 26 and resumed equine imports through Santa Teresa under a seven-day quarantine, with Nogales, Arizona next in line for November 30 if screwworm safeguards hold.

Rescued Dog Rocky Makes Remarkable Recovery After Being Found Helpless — Found barely able to lift his head inside a trash bag in Philadelphia in September, Rocky has doubled in weight from about nine to over eighteen pounds and is now running outdoors, with a cruelty investigation and a $3,500 reward still open over his abandonment.

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