TCM diagnosis poses new challenges. As vets, we are used to gathering information indirectly through asking questions of owners, through observation with our eyes, listening with a stethoscope, and even smelling greasy yeasty ears. We also routinely use palpation to feel enlarged or painful abdominal organs, to detect the heat of acute inflammation or pyrexia, or the soft fluctuant swelling of abscesses. However since beginning to learn TCM several years ago, I’ve had to modify my skills.