What is involved in a dog wellness exam?
Ah, well, you're gonna schedule your dog's appointment, they're gonna walk on into our vet hospital and the veterinarian's gonna come on in and that's when our exam, for me, really starts. Obviously, you're gonna come in with a history of how your pet's been doing, our nurses are going to ask you some additional questions and maybe some supplements or medications or foods that your pet may be on, but your veterinarian's assessment really starts when they walk in the room. We're gonna be looking at your dog's overall just body condition, brightness of their eyes, what is their skin weight, all of those things look like. I call it we start with our eyes and then we want to try to get our hands on your dog. So we're gonna be feeling for all kinds of things and then looking with our eyes. So just a good comprehensive exam for your dog. Eyes, we're gonna check nose, facial symmetry, we're gonna be looking at their teeth, we're gonna be feeling along their jaw, feeling their lymph nodes, we're gonna be checking their ears and be looking at head symmetry, we're gonna be moving down feeling body muscle mass, are they too fat, too thin, what's their overall muscle condition, are they really heavily muscled, are they really thin muscled, we're gonna be moving down along their chest, we're gonna be listening to their hearts, listening to lungs, we're gonna move down into the abdominal area, we're gonna be palpating, we're gonna feel for masses, we're gonna feel for swellings, fluids, we're gonna try to feel their kidneys, we're gonna move back to the urinary bladder, we're gonna feel if there's any kind of abnormal urinary bladder stones, feel around in the amygdala abdomen, feel if there's any pain, discomfort, organ, again organ enlargement and move back to those back little legs, we're gonna feel down those legs for muscle symmetry, we're gonna maybe move those joints around, we're gonna be lifting the knees, lifting the hips, we're gonna be checking the skin and the hair coat all the way through, we're gonna maybe lift those feet, look at the pads, look at toenails, then we're gonna move all the way back to their booties, maybe do a little quick booty check, just that's a real big comprehensive exam, veterinarians are trained to do that really well, we are experts in it, that's our, this is our main diagnostic tool, hands, eyes, ears and sometimes nose can uncover a whole lot of things that your dog might be hiding from you, that's a big comprehensive wellness exam, yeah because we just as veterinarians were trained to detect subtle abnormalities or changes in your dog or just maintaining their ideal body condition, you might think they're too just right in their weight and we think they're too fat, which obesity can lead to a barrage of health issues that we can be preventing for you, we know that dogs that see veterinarians regularly will have increased length of time in their life, so both time and health, so quality of life is improved at the end of their lives by regular visits with their veterinarian throughout their lives, yeah so usually the first time a veterinarian gets to see that little new dog is as a puppy typically between eight and excuse me six and eight weeks of age, that's usually the first time our pet parents get their new puppies, that's usually in that age group, so that's the time that we actually want to see your little dog is the very very like within the first week that you get them, we want to just check them over, make sure that they're healthy, any congenital problems if they're a puppy, we want to just make sure that they're vaccinated correctly, just look for things that you aren't able to see and then start preventatives and vaccinations, things to keep them healthy, that's when they're little kids, however you might not get a puppy, maybe you get an adult dog, you go to a rescue and they've had maybe some vetting care where they've been at their rescue, but now it's your pet and you're bringing them into your home, you still want to come and set up a relationship with your primary care veterinarian, they're again going to look over that pet and then just make sure that they have everything they need for the lifestyle that they're going to be living with you, so it's very important that you get to your veterinarian very closely after you get your new puppy or if you adopt a new family member into your life.
Dr. Noel Lucas
Blue Oasis Pet Hospital
What are some dog wellness recommendations that my vet is likely to make?
Uh-huh, so good just preventive care management, so after we do a good physical exam we're going to talk about how we can protect them through immunization, so what vaccines do they need and we're going to ask what kind of lifestyle they're going to have, are they going to be outdoorsy, they're going to be going to the groomer or boarding facility all the time, are you a big traveler, are they going to be traveling all over the United States or are you a homebody and so they are as well, so what we recommend for vaccinations depends on their lifestyle, also we're going to be wanting them to be on a preventative, so we live in Nashville and Tennessee, so we are in a very endemic area for heartworm disease and for fleas and for tick-borne diseases, so we're going to want to protect your pet from those diseases with preventive care, preventive heartworm prevention, flea and tick prevention, those are some good preventatives, we're going to look and see if they have any intestinal parasites and we're going to probably want to recheck that every single year to just make sure they're not having any parasites internally that they're harboring, we're going to check their teeth, let's see what kind of dental disease they might have, if they have nice shiny puppy teeth, that's great, maybe we're going to recommend some preventative home care that you can do at home to try to keep those teeth nice and bright and clean, if they have some dental disease, maybe we're going to recommend a good cleaning, so we partner with you to try to keep those pets healthy, protected and prevent disease as they go through life. Yeah, so early detection, just like within people, if you find something early, we can actually do something about it, maybe earlier, so that we can change the path that that disease is on and maybe cure it, if we can't cure it, maybe we can really slow it down, but finding it early and doing something about it early is so much easier and less expensive than finding it when they're suffering from illness related to that disease and are already sick and now we are treating those symptoms or maybe it's more advanced and we can't cure it or it's just a lot harder or more expensive to cure, so finding disease early is certainly much easier to treat or cure. Mm-hmm, so geriatric dog screening, so that just simply means that you have an older dog, usually for us, depends on the breed, geriatric dogs start maybe about 13, 14 years of age, if you have a big, big dog like a Great Dane that's going to start earlier, they're geriatric years, if you have a little Pomeranian, maybe 14, 15, they're going to be a geriatric dog. Geriatric dogs are essentially senior dogs, they have more health diseases, they may have already had diseases that we've diagnosed or acquiring new ones, so those are the guys that we actually want to see more often, ideally instead of once a year, which is our average time that we want to see a dog during their adult life as they become seniors in geriatrics, we're going to probably recommend as veterinarians that you bring your dog to see us about every six months, because we actually will be looking for some of those diseases early, if they're starting to get some, we're going to start partnering with you and how we can change that disease process and give them happier, healthier lives. That's kind of a random topic and when we're just talking about general wellness exams, but if your dog has allergies and we are having a hard time controlling them, or we have them well controlled but you're looking for an actual answer on why your dog has allergies, we actually can do allergy testing in dogs, there's two types, there's a blood test that we can do, send it off to the lab and it'll identify the titers or antibodies that they have to different allergens, or we can refer you on to a veterinary dermatologist where they can do skin testing to determine what those allergens are, very similar in people. Allergy testing is something that we can do, we don't do very often, but it can be part of an allergy workup and treatment, so if you have any questions about just a general wellness exam for your dog, so important, veterinarians are just waiting to get to, you know, see your dog, do a good physical exam and partner with you, our goal is to have that dog stay with you and be happy and healthy for as long as we can throughout that dog's life, so please reach out to your veterinarian, have your dog seen at least every single year, if you are in the Nashville area and are looking for a good veterinarian, please reach out to Blue Oasis Pet Hospital, we would love to see you, thanks.
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