Preventative Care is the biggest proponent of ensuring your pet has the longest life it can live. From yearly or biannual evaluations to dentistry, we offer all aspects of preventative care for your cat or dog.
Preventative Care for your Dog
The age of your dog will determine what we recommend for their preventative care.
Adult Dogs
Adult dogs, those that are between the ages of 1 and 7 years old, should be examined at minimum, once yearly.
For our adult dogs, we recommend a yearly exam where we administer any needed vaccines, perform an intestinal parasite screening and perform a heartworm screening. For best care, we recommend an Adult Wellness Blood panel, that gives us an overall look at the patient’s chemistry values, and blood cell counts. By performing yearly blood work, we can have a good baseline of your pet’s values and can see early changes as they happen. Depending on your pet’s age and dental health, yearly dental cleanings are also highly recommended. Though some pets can go longer between dental cleanings, it is always a good idea to have dental health assessed each year.
We also recommend that you keep your dog on year-round heartworm, flea, and tick protection. Heartworms are passed through mosquitoes and live in the bloodstream of the dog, where they will eventually grow into adult worms and move to the heart and even the lungs, where they can cause irreversible damage.
Fleas and ticks are other biting insects that can also pass diseases to your pet. Some of these diseases can include Lyme’s disease, Ehrlichia, and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Fleas and ticks can also cause anemia (low red blood cell counts) in your pets. Oklahoma does not have cold enough weather for long enough to send these biting insects into diapause, which is the term insects are given for hibernation. We would have to have temperatures below freezing for more than 10 days straight to cause this. Since we very rarely have these temperatures in Oklahoma, and some species of ticks actually thrive in colder weather, it is very important that you keep your pet on prevention all year long.
Senior Dogs
Senior dogs are those that are 7 years and older. For senior dogs, we recommend a biannual exam. This allows us to keep track of their health and notice any problems early on. We continue to administer any needed core vaccines and at minimum the same heartworm and intestinal parasite screening as adult dogs.
For our senior dogs, we do highly recommend completing a full blood profile. This profile will test the red and white blood cells, electrolytes, glucose levels, liver and kidney values, thyroid values, and a urine screening. This gives us a more in-depth look at how everything inside the pet is functioning as it should, and again, catch any changes early on, where treatment is less invasive, easier, and usually less costly than when a pet presents ill for a problem.
Dental cleaning and parasite prevention continues to be important throughout the life of your dog.
Parasite Prevention in Dogs
We have a few options for in-house prevention, but we also have an online pharmacy where you can look at your options of other preventatives. You can find the link to our online pharmacy at the bottom of the page.
The flea and tick options that we have are as follows:
Effitix Plus – this is a topical flea and tick prevention that you place on your pet’s skin in between their shoulder blades. This medication works for 30 days. This product will kill fleas and ticks and has some repellant properties as well.
Simparica – this is an oral flea and tick prevention that you give with a meal once every 30 days. This product will kill fleas and ticks.
The heartworm prevention options that we carry are as follows:
Iverhart Max – this is an oral chewy that is given once every 30 days. This medication will help prevent heartworm infestation, and also deworms against the most common parasites we see in our area.
ProHeart – ProHeart is an injection that is given underneath the skin. There are two versions of ProHeart. There is ProHeart 6 which gives protection against heartworms for 6 months, and ProHeart 12, which is one injection that gives protection against heartworms for an entire year.
We also now have an all in one prevention:
Simparica Trio – this is a chewable tablet that is given with a meal once every 30 days. This medication prevents heartworm infestations, while also killing fleas and ticks.
Preventative Care for Your Cat
Much like dogs, recommended preventative care varies based on your cat’s age.
Adult Cats
Adult Cats are those that are age 1 to 7 years old. Our recommended preventative care for adult cats is almost identical to those recommendations of our dogs. We recommend a yearly exam where we do the full exam and perform any vaccines that are needed. A yearly intestinal parasite screening is also highly recommended.
For best preventative care for adult cats, we also recommend performing and an adult profile which for cats includes the standard complete blood count, an adult chemistry panel that looks at kidney, liver, glucose, some electrolyte values, and for cats, it also includes a urinalysis.
We also recommend yearly heartworm, flea, and tick prevention for your cat. Even if your cat is an indoor-only cat, the recommendation remains the same for year-round prevention against these parasites. Fleas and ticks can be carried in on shoes and clothing of owners, and mosquitoes can fly inside any time a door is opened.
Mature and Senior Cats
A cat is considered mature from the ages of 7 to 10 years old, and a senior beginning at 11 years old. Because cats can change so quickly and are such great pretenders in that they mask pain and disease until they are really sick, we don’t differentiate with our recommendations for both life stages.
We recommend biannual visits for our mature and senior cats. Once yearly we will perform the exam and administer any needed vaccines. For our older cats, we recommend the same senior panel we perform on dogs. It gives us a comprehensive look at all the body systems. We get our complete blood count, a full chemistry panel that measures kidney and liver values, several different electrolyte and mineral values, glucose levels, thyroid values, and a urinalysis.
And again, the recommended yearly heartworm, flea, and tick prevention remain the same.
Parasite Prevention in Cats
For our cats, we have one product we carry, and that is Revolution Plus. Revolution Plus is a topical that is administered on the skin between the shoulder blades once every 30 days. This product also does monthly deworming for cats to help protect against the most common intestinal parasites.
Wondering where the information for puppy and kitten care is? Head on over to our puppy and kitten page by clicking the link below.
We understand that your pet’s care can be expensive. And we have a solution for you! Visit our Preventative Care Plan page to learn how to budget your pet care from everything including preventative care, vaccines, bloodwork, parasite prevention, dentistry, and our solution for injury and illness visits! Just click on the preventative care plan button located below.