Providing your pet with the daily
care to maintain a healthy lifestyle is a lot like taking care of
yourself on a daily basis! We are all different genetic wise, but
there are many things that are done on a daily/monthly basis that helps
us stay healthy and lead a high quality life. Animals are no
different! Maintaining a healthy pet includes:
Good Nutrition:
Your pet should be fed a quality well-balanced diet that is
appropriate for their stage of life. We recommend feeding an
appropriate amount daily; based on the feeding guide on the bag of food.
Consult a veterinarian for questions or more details.
Daily Exercise:
Whether it is a walk around the block, playing fetch in the yard, or
chasing a piece of yarn, it is important for your pet to get exercise
daily to help maintain muscles and a good body condition. Extra
body weight leads to increased risk for multiple health problems.
Quality Environment:
Ensure that your pet has a good environment to live in to reduce
risk for injury or death. Always have fresh water available and a
shaded area for pets that live outside. Also clean, comfortable
bedding is important.
Regular Grooming:
A bath or a routine appointment with a groomer is a big step for
maintaining good hygiene and helping to remove any fleas, ticks, or
other parasites that may be using your pet as a host. A routine
grooming appointment will be breed dependent (example: shih tzu,
schnauzer, poodle, etc).
Good Oral Hygiene:
Just like people, it is important to maintain good oral hygiene to
prevent disease in the oral cavity and in other major organs. We
recommend daily brushing if possible, as well as using a dental treat to
keep tartar off of teeth. As needed/instructed by your veterinarian, it
is highly recommended to have a dental cleaning and polishing to
maintain healthy teeth and gums.
Annual Vaccinations:
It is very important to keep your pet up to date on annual
vaccinations to protect them from potentially fatal diseases.
Please refer to our vaccination guidelines on this website or consult a
veterinarian for recommendations.
Annual Wellness Exam:
We highly recommend your pet being examined by a veterinarian at
least once a year, if not twice, to ensure that your pet is healthy and
to be able to catch any disease or illness early if present. This
is not only important for young adult animals, but especially important
for older animals.
Annual Intestinal Parasite
Screening: The environment around us houses
parasites such as giardia, roundworms, hookworms, whipworms, coccidia,
etc. Your pet can be exposed by being out in the yard, what you
track in on your shoes, from grooming another animal, or even from their
mother. The incidence for pets having parasites is so high that we
recommend all animals be screened at least once a year for intestinal
parasites. Consult your veterinarian for the appropriate steps on
having this done.
Year-round Heartworm Prevention:
Heartworms are transmitted by mosquitoes. With the large
population of mosquitoes, comes a higher risk for your pet being
infected with heartworms. It takes just 1 mosquito for your pet to
become infected and the main treatment available is not the safest, not
to mention it is expensive. We highly highly highly recommend all
animals being on a year round heartworm prevention program, which
usually consists of giving your pet a tablet/chew once every 30 days.
Consult your veterinarian to get your pet started!
Flea/Tick Prevention:
Fleas and ticks are the most common ectoparasite to use your pet as
their host. An ingestion of a flea can infect your pet with
tapeworms, an intestinal parasite. Ticks can transmit multiple
diseases, such as lyme disease, erlichia, rocky mountain spotted fever,
etc. Your pets can bring these pests into your home where they can
then take refuge and continue to cause problems for your pet. We
recommend using a quality flea/tick preventive on your pet during the
spring, summer, and fall. It is important to make sure that you
put a prevention designed for a cat on a cat, and prevention made for a
dog on a dog! Consult your veterinarian for appropriate dosages
and for what they recommend as a quality product.
