Last week I mentioned wellness screening to help detect kidney failure before it makes pets sick. Part of our goal at Animal Care Clinic is to nurture the bond you have with your pets. This means we want to increase the quality and length of your pets ™ lives while improving your relationship with them. We think that wellness is the cornerstone to the human animal bond. Wellness means disease prevention and early detection. It includes physical exams yearly for youngsters and at least twice yearly as pets age or develop chronic diseases.

Wellness includes vaccination programs that are specific for your pet ™s age, lifestyle, likelihood of exposure and your personal feelings about vaccines. We also emphasize parasite control, both internally and externally to protect people and animals in the household. Nutrition, weight control, fitness and behavior are also essential parts our wellness programs. Disease screening is extremely important. So many diseases can be cured if caught early and yet be devastating if diagnosed only after the pet begins to show signs of the problem. At risk pets should be screened for certain infectious diseases including feline leukemia and Lyme ™s disease. As pets age, we recommend blood and urine testing to look for early cases of kidney disease, liver problems, thyroid dysfunction, bladder infections/stones, diabetes and a multitude of other maladies that cut a pet ™s life short of allowed to progress unchecked. When we catch diseases early, we can often manage them just with dietary changes or other simple treatments.

By Bonnie Markoff, DVM, ABVP