General Health Care

Providing regular, life-long veterinary care is important for keeping your pet and family healthy. Regular veterinary visits are essential to good pet health. Talk to the consulting Vet about how to keep your pet healthy. Provide your pet with a good diet, fresh water, clean bedding, and plenty of exercise along with TLC. Keep up with your pet’s vaccines, deworming, flea and tick control, dental care and grooming. Adult dogs should have a complete veterinary examination at least once a year. Puppies need veterinary visits usually every 3 to 4 weeks until they are about 4 months old. Geriatric dogs (older than 7 to 8 years old) should see their veterinarian twice a year or more frequently because illness is more common in older pets and it can be identified sooner. A wellness program for your pet, including routine blood work to monitor for problems such as early kidney or liver disease will be recommended to diagnose and treat diseases at the earliest. As a pet parent, you should watch it carefully for subtle signs of illness. General signs of illness include a lack of appetite or decreased activity. Other more specific signs include vomiting and diarrhoea, urinating more (or less) frequently, coughing and sneezing, or a discharge from the eyes, ears, or nose. Illness can also show up as a loss of hair or itchy areas on the skin or around the ears. Problems with the bones, muscle or joints are often seen as stiffness or lameness. If your dog shows any of these signs for more than a day or two, get the pet examined by the Vet. Avoid self-medicating the pet.