General Pet Health
General PET HEALTH
As your pet’s healthcare provider, it’s our goal to not only offer advice during times of illness but also to guide you on keeping your companion happy and healthy throughout their life. Preventative health is one of the best ways to ensure they’re in good shape from their youngest months of life all the way through to their senior years.
Our pets age at a much faster rate than we do. One year for us is equivalent to five to seven for our furry mates, meaning that significant health changes can occur quickly. Making things more difficult, our pets are unable to tell us if they feel off-colour, unwell or have any other indicators of internal illness. To help your pet stay healthy, we recommend physical health and well-being exams every six months. These exams give us the opportunity to check your pet’s physical condition and gain further history about their environment. Our veterinarians can use that information about their lifestyle, age and other factors to get your pet the vaccinations they need to stay safe.
Physical Examination
Although a physical examination along with the history tells us a lot about your pet, we will also need to run surveillance screenings (blood tests) or urinalysis to help detect a variety of potential internal diseases before they are clinically apparent. A mini-profile on younger pets and a complete profile on senior pets are needed to screen for problems like kidney disease, diabetes and thyroid disease. These types of conditions cannot be detected on physical exams alone, but early detection can significantly help your pet’s response to treatment.
Often a pet’s illness or injury can catch us by surprise – it is a very emotional and upsetting time when we are asked by the vet to make decisions on the standard of care we want our pet to receive. We recommend that pets be covered by pet insurance so that together we can give them the best medical care. There are many different pet insurance companies and types of policies available. Some may have different exclusions based on age or breed, or previous illness. If you have any questions about these plans, please feel free to give us a call.