Healthy Puppies and Dogs

Welcome to our clinic. We appreciate your confidence in choosing us for your pet’s health care. With this new addition to your home come many responsibilities. These are our suggestions on achieving and maintaining the healthiest possible pet.

Your pet’s first check up should occur between 6 and 8 weeks of age. We recommend a physical exam, fecal examination (for internal parasites), nutritional counseling, behavioral counseling and vaccinations. We also need to begin heartworm preventative and discuss flea and tick control.

We then recommend follow-up visits every four weeks (monthly) until all necessary vaccines have been administered. There will be some variability for each pet as to which vaccines are necessary.

Surgeries for most dogs will occur between three and six months of age. In the female this is an ovariohysterectomy and in the male a castration. We recommend pre-surgical bloodwork to help identify problems and to help avoid possible complications in and after surgery. This would include a CBC and a small chemistry screen. The CBC(complete blood count) checks number of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. This identifies anemia, possible infections, leukemias of blood cells and low platelet numbers(important in clotting blood). The chemistry screen checks for normal kidney and liver function. After recovery from surgery we may suggest changes in your pet’s nutritional plan.

Your pet then should come no less than once a year for a complete physical examination.

This is extremely important in long term health and preventive care. Appropriate vaccinations can also be given at this time. Because of our abundant mosquito, flea and tick populations in our area, we also recommend year round prevention for these external parasites. Even if your pet never misses a month of heartworm preventative we recommend heartworm tests every two years as a minimum.

Once your pet reaches middle age( 2-5 years depending on breed) we recommend another round of diagnostic testing. This helps to identify the early onset of degenerative (aging) diseases. Early intervention is always desirable. We would recommend a:

1. CBC – complete blood count. This will give us indications of anemia, infection, leukemia, low platelet and low iron levels.
2. Urinalysis – helps monitor kidney disease, diabetes and rules out cystitis (bladder infections).
3. Chemistry panel – looks at enzymes associated with different body organs, (e.g.) liver, pancreas, kidney) electrolytes and protein levels.
4. Blood pressure – rules out hypertension
5. Radiographs – assesses heart shape and size, health of lung tissue, liver and kidney size, presence of tumors (cancer) enlarged lymph nodes.

Once we receive these test results we can decide when additional testing will be necessary and make changes in our nutritional/preventive health plan.

Your pet is a loving investment for you and your family. Our goal is to allow you to enjoy them as long as possible with a high quality of life for your pet. If we may answer additional questions or concerns please let us know.