Active Years

Your pet’s most active years will hopefully be a very long stretch of time that you can enjoy with your pet. You can reduce or eliminate many problems by using known preventive strategies at home and when you visit us.

• Continue on a reputable quality pet food in an adult formula. Start this no later than 1 year of age. Measuring your pets food becomes important, this will reduce your pets likelihood of becoming overweight. Treats should be given carefully and vegetables like carrots and green beans are a great substitute. Keeping your pet at an ideal weight will add years to his/her life and will reduce the chance of chronic diseases.
• Continue brushing those teeth! We may recommend a dental cleaning or even extractions, but if your pet is used to brushing this will help minimize severe problems.
  If you do not have pet insurance, you might want to consider it before the onset of middle or advanced age when more health problems are more likely to occur.
• Annual exams are important. We will recommend vaccinations depending on your pets’ age and lifestyle. Stool should be checked twice a year and heartworm test performed annually.
• We will offer and recommend annual wellness blood screens (with urine testing as your pet gets to “middle age”). This offers both baseline normal values for your pet and early detection as abnormalities occur. Remember your pet ages must faster than you do and yearly blood testing is equivalent to a much longer period in a human.