Dobson joined the Cornell faculty in 1964 as an associate professor in the veterinary college, where he studied ruminant physiology, focused on how sheep and cows absorb nutrients and the effects of anesthesia on horse pulmonary circulation. Trained as a gastrointestinal physiologist, Dobson made substantial contributions to the understanding of the comparative biology of gastrointestinal function in mammals, and he became a leader in the use of computers for acquiring biological data and performing analysis. He retired from Cornell in 1995, though he continued to work and he published many papers as an emeritus professor.