Companion Animal Hospital

PLLC of Fountain City

Preventative Health Services

Our animal hospital provides many different types of preventative health services. These services include:

Physical Examinations.

We believe that the physical examination, when coupled with the animal's medical history, can be the most important thing that is done to that animal as far as preventative health care. A good history is critical to all examinations, so clients must be astute observers of their companions. (You should be able to find a history questionnaire on this site.) A good physical examination can reveal problems that an owner might overlook or take for granted, especially when the owner's contact with his or her companion, although daily, may be casual. We try to take a look, listen, feel and sometimes even a smell to the mouth, nose, throat (where possible), eyes, ears, skin, lymph nodes, lungs and heart, the abdomen and evaluate the nervous and musculo-skeletal systems. Common things we find are dental disease, excessive weight and skin masses. Sometimes there is weight loss or change in drinking, eating, or urination patterns that the owner has not recognized until it has been called to their attention. Sometimes, the plan will involve at-home care and management while at other times, other diagnostics may be recommended. Noticing changes in behavior, eating and drinking habits, elimination, etc. may give us a clue as to what and/or where the problem is. For younger animals (younger than 7 years), annual examinations and wellness laboratory testing may be enough. For older animals, one to two times a year (or even more), are recommended to assess the health of a companion. Feel free to contact us should you have any questions.

Routine Laboratory Screening

  1. A second part of our routine preventative health services includes routine laboratory screening. Years ago, probably internal parasitism was one of our greatest problems and because of this, fecal examinations for parasite eggs and heartworm testing were common. Although we still do these today and still find parasites, we do not commonly see these parasites today because more animals are kept indoors and because of heartworm preventatives that prevent infections by a variety of parasites. Probably when we do see parasites in animals it is because the animal is not given its medication in a timely manner, because the animal does not swallow the medication when given or because the animal is exposed to high populations of parasites. For dogs, we recommend annual screening for parasites, both fecal and heartworm, and a complete blood count, abbreviated serum profile and an urinalysis. For cats, we recommend annual fecal screening and feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus testing in outdoor animals and a complete blood count, abbreviated serum profile, feline heartworm antibody test and an urinalysis. For older animals (for medium to small sized animals greater than 7 years of age), we recommend more extensive laboratory testing. In many diseases, we only have the ability to manage the disease process, so early identification of the process becomes important to our ability to manage the disease.
  2. We do have in-house capabilities for running other diagnostic tests, including urine evaluations, complete blood counts and serum blood profiles and individual diagnostic tests. (We usually prefer using an outside laboratory if we have the choice because quality control tends to be much higher than in-house veterinary laboratories.) Some in-house tests we recommend for pre-surgical screening, while others we perform if an animal needs more immediate results due to illness.

Immunizations

The entire area of immunizations has recently come under scrutiny by researchers, veterinarians and academic institutions. As there are risks with any process, whether it be medical or husbandry issues, we try to look harder at benefit versus risk. For instances, in cats, it is now well known that a very low number of cats (some say 1-5 out of every 10,000) can develop malignant tumors not only to immunizations, but to injections in general. Pharmaceutical companies have produced immunizations for a number of disorders; however, in our practice, we do not offer immunizations for diseases of very low incidence or of mild clinical signs. Furthermore, should we feel that the risk of contracting a disease is very low (for example, an indoor cat that has absolutely no exposure to other cats, we would not immunize for feline leukemia virus), we might advise modifying the accepted annual protocol. Since 2003, we have also changed the frequency of certain immunizations as research has suggested immunizations against certain organisms may last much longer than the manufacturer’s recommendations. Should you have questions, feel free to contact our office.

Dental Care

One of the most common diseases in veterinary medicine is dental disease. Bad breath, inflamed gums, and loose teeth are just some of the signs of dental disease. Dental disease that is left unchecked may result in tooth loss, systemic infections, and kidney, heart and liver disease. Our hospital offers general recommendations as far as prevention and cleanings and polishings under general anesthesia. (There are always risks with anesthesia, risks have substantially decreased with newer anesthetics.) Although we perform these services year-round, we have for many years designated February as Pet Dental Month, a time when we focus on this problem and offer cleanings at a slightly discounted rate. Many have used this time to catch up on their pet's oral health. If more advanced techniques (root canals, fillings, etc.) are necessary, referrals are usually available if the client is interested. For more information, please visit PetDental.com.

Preventative surgical procedures / Laser surgery

Many veterinarians offer procedures such as neutering and spaying as well as other preventative type surgeries, which are done solely to prevent either physical or behavioral problems in the future. As of 2004, we are incorporating a laser as part of many of these procedures. Laser surgery often offers decreased pain and bleeding resulting in faster healing. For more information about these procedures, feel free to contact us via telephone or e-mail.

Consultations

Primarily during the course of preventative health visits, we offer consultations on behavior, nutrition and management, based on our past experience and training. Although we are not experts in the field, we may be able to offer information which would help answer your questions and should be unable to do so, we can probably obtain information or refer you to an expert in these areas.

Pain management

More and more, we are finding that it is very important to manage pain. Pain management often results in faster healing and a more comfortable companion. Animals do not tell us when they are in pain and often mask their pain, at their own expense. Therefore, we do recommend medications for our companions that we feel are painful from disease processes or from procedures.

Euthanasia

Euthanasia, which is basically giving an anesthetic drug in overdose, is not a procedure which we take lightly nor do we prefer to perform it. For those people who feel they need this service and there is no medical reason to support it (what we would refer to as convenience euthanasia), we would refer them elsewhere. We do not euthanize healthy animals or animals whose problems do not carry a poor prognosis. Euthanasia is not some trivial act and does affect both the owner and the persons who handle the animal. Our goal is to help support life to the best of our ability and to offer this service when there is no apparent real reason only further trivializes the great miracle of life.

Copyright 2009 - Companion Animal Hospital PLLC of Fountain City