General Wellness
Regular checkups are as important to your pet as they are to humans.
We start with a good history of your pet's care at home, their appetite, brand of food you feed, other pets in the home, how your pet was acquired, if he or she is spayed or neutered, are they very playful, what type of exercise do they get and so on.
A thorough physical exam starts with your pet's vital signs: temperature, pulse, respiratory rate, weight, and in older cats and dogs, blood pressure. We then examine the eyes, ears, nose and throat and do a full dental exam to check for tartar, gingivitis and signs of periodontal disease. Working our way towards the tail, we palpate the lymph nodes in the neck, axillary (under the front legs), inguinal (groin), and behind the rear legs. The thyroid gland is examined especially in elderly cats. We listen to the heart and lungs, palpate the abdomen, do a musculoskeletal and neurological exam, examine the skin and hair coat, paws and nails. We also check the urogenital system.
We will recommend a small basic blood chemistry panel each year as part of their wellness checkup and in older animals, this will be more extensive. A yearly fecal exam is also recommended to check for gastrointestinal parasites.
A SNAP 4Dx test is taken yearly for all dogs. This is a combination of 4 tests: Heartworm, Lyme, Ehrlichia canis, and Anaplasma phagocytophilum. Heartworm disease is transmitted by mosquito bites and the other three diseases are carried by ticks. As you know, we live in a heavily infested tick area. We are diagnosing dogs with these diseases every day.
Depending on your pet's life style (indoor verses outdoor, contact with other animals), we may recommend particular vaccines that will help your pet stay healthy.
If we identify physical problems such as dental issues, we may plan a dental cleaning and polishing that we would arrange on a separate day. You will receive complete estimates for any recommended services or procedures. So the purpose of the yearly physical exam is to identify problems before they become long term and difficult to manage and to prevent illness.
Please feel free to contact us if you would like any additional information about our general wellness care.
