You have heard about, if not done, routine wellness exams on your beloved pet, your fluffy doggo, your chubby kitty, your super cute pet squirrel, or your extra-chatty grey parrot.
Some may be skeptical of their necessity, considering it a mere luxury for those who can afford to overindulge in their pets. But we are here to let you know wellness exams are no luxury, quite the contrary, they can save you hundreds, maybe thousands, in preventing conditions that would cost you far more if given time to develop.
So tune in, letting us stroll you through what a regular monthly or bimonthly visit to the pet does for your pet, your bank account, and your ultimate pet-related happiness.
Preventive Vs. Corrective Vs. Curative Pet Care
If you are here, it means you either have been a pet owner for a while or you are new to the territory but have been around pet owners quite often, meaning you know how much can go wrong with a pet and how fast things can go from a perfect looking pet spreading joy everywhere to one who is miserable, spreading that misery all around. Based on this fact, a vet can provide three types of care to your fluff balls: preventive, corrective, and curative. Let’s see what’s what and how it goes to illustrate routine wellness exams are a wise idea.
Preventive Diagnosis and Care
In a routine wellness exam, we vets ask a series of questions and check several things in the physical exam we give, a good chunk of which is meant to watch out for disorders that may be coming. We had seen everything that can go south and where and when they started going wrong, so we know what is leading to trouble down the line, sooner or later. And if you come to us regularly, we also have your dog and cat’s health and medical history. We can make informed comparisons and contrasts, pinpoint any anomaly, and address it before it gets too late or too expensive. Here are the things we check and the question we ask to recommend and implement preventive measures and medication.
Diet and Nutrition Check
A good, healthy, balanced, non-toxic, non-reactive diet can keep your pet healthy, but a slight change into something harmful you unknowingly let your fur baby eat can set off a chain reaction, leading to several digestive problems, intestinal problems, infections, mood changes, and so on. And remember, there are a lot of foodstuffs you may consider innocent little treats for your four-legged companions to reward their good behaviour, which can poison or aggravate them. So, a routine visit to the vet not vents a host of problems down the line, but it’s an education that will stay in your mind for future reference.
Exercise Routine Check
How much physical exercise your dog or cat gets based on their breed, age, and diet can play a significant role in whether they can maintain their health or not. So being asked questions about how many zoomies they do on a typical day, how many walks they take, and how long and how frolicky the walks are can tell us a lot about their physical and mental well-being and whether it’s a symptom of something threatening somehow.
Corrective Diagnosis And Measures
In a wellness exam, we may come across non-conformities that are not quite fully formed diseases or conditions, but they’re in the first stage of development. It’s like that throat bulge or nose-burning sensation that alerts you to a cold coming and gives you a chance to nip it in the bud before it brews into a full-blown common cold debilitating you for a couple of days and costs you much more in lost work and medicine. So, things that alert us to the emergence of a condition can be spotted in regular monthly check-ups and can be caught just in time and corrected while still manageable affordably before they progress into something direr are called corrective diagnosis and measures and one of the great benefits of regular vet visits.
Waste And Urine Elimination Patterns
How often, regularly, and easily your floor’s bowel and bladder movements are can be a huge indicator of their health. As many of us have busy lives, you may not notice whether there is some aberration with them, but being asked makes you take a mental inventory and remember aberrations in the patterns. And we, as the guardians of your joy-bringing companions, need to have that information to do the corrective procedures before they turn into a whole thing that needs either lengthy medication or even surgery or, god forbid, irreversible health issues.
Behaviour and Habits
Dogs can be the cheerful, high-energy, or the more peacefully-sitting, low-energy type. They can be friendly and outgoing or aloof and tense. A change in behaviour, whether sudden or gradual, not only can mean something is wrong, it can quickly escalate into attacks, trigger aggressions, and cause medical problems. So a routine check both to detect any possible change in behaviour to catch any possible irregularity and address it before it’s too late can be vital in keeping your pet’s life healthy and happy, as well as yours, your neighbours, and anyone who might come into contact with both of you.
Curative Measures
When we come across a fully developed growth, a skin condition, or an infection, or your precious fuzzy buddy has been attacked or gotten into an accident, what we can do is curative; the disease or injury has happened, it’s in full existence, and we have to take measures to cure it. This stage is usually the most expensive, lengthy, and painful for the poor little animal and you, who care deeply about the little darlings.
Breathing pattern checks
When your dog’s breathing is different from its normal pattern, which we have established in previous regular checks, its faster, slower, or labour, it can be a sign of a couple of conditions, like infection, diseased nose and nostrils, tracheal collapse, or that they have swallowed a foreign object which is obstructing their trachea. These conditions are severe and need to be addressed fast, for example, with medication to prevent sepsis or surgery from removing the object.
Parasite Control And Skin And Coat Check
Pets can get parasites like ticks and fleas in their coat or internal bugs like intestinal parasites or heartworms. They can also develop skin conditions like mange or sores, which can show in their appearance or behaviour. For example, if your dog is licking itself in a certain area more than usual, bald patches or dandruff out of the blue can mean they have contracted a skin issue, and mild coughs and unexplained fatigue can point to heartworm. All of the above will result in a routine check-up, needing to be seen with curative measures quickly.
Why Routine Visits To Your Local Trusted Vet Is Good Value
Plenty can go wrong in a short time; that’s why the saying goes, “prevention is better than cure.” paying us a regular visit can prevent a lot, costing you less money and anxiety. There’s a lot we can discover in the nick of time and take corrective action, which again needs regular visits. But once it has reached the curative phase, all we can do is go to more extreme lengths, which again can be pretty time-sensitive, as you can be too late bringing them in when what we can do is just not enough. So establish a regular visitation rhythm with us and save yourself a lot of money, anxiety, and regret.