Dog Preventive Care

Reliably, yes. A dental cleaning costs a fraction of extractions plus infection; prevention products cost a fraction of heartworm treatment or a parvo hospitalization; early kidney detection costs a fraction of crisis care. Prevention converts catastrophes into line items.

Substantially. A daycare regular needs bordetella and influenza protection; a trail dog needs leptospirosis coverage and tick focus; an apartment senior needs screening emphasis. The core stays constant — the rest is tailored to actual risk.

A baseline in young adulthood is useful; annual screening earns its keep from about age seven (earlier for giant breeds). Trends over years are the real payoff — a value drifting within 'normal' can flag disease long before any single result looks alarming.

Preventative care is a discussion about vaccines, diet, exercise, preventatives such as heartworm prevention, and parasiticides for intestinal parasites and external parasites, fleas, and ticks. Some of these things are vitally important for your dog’s well-being and safety, and yet we want to have an individual conversation with every one of our dog owners to make sure that we're doing the right thing for their lifestyle.

If you were to have a short stop, we want to make sure that your dog's not going to be able to move forward and injure themselves or a human. If they came from the back seat to the front seat, they could hit the back of your head. So what we'd like to do is make sure that your dog is either in a crate or that they have a seatbelt on.

The reason for your dog to be on a leash at all times out in public is because there are scary things, like cars and other dogs. And if your dog were to see something like a rabbit or another dog across the street, they'll take off and run. We have coyotes in my neighborhood, and so my dogs would love to take off and run after the coyotes. One of my dogs is 15 pounds, and he would become a coyote meal. So we keep them on a leash all the time when we're out hiking on trails. And so it's for safety for you and your dog.

Well, it prevents disease and illness. Vaccines are going to prevent some very bad diseases like distemper, parvo, and rabies, leptospirosis, parainfluenza, bordetella, and the flu—these are all things that we want to prevent in your dog. There are also intestinal parasites and external parasites and heartworm—again, things that we're going to prevent. And there’s even the consideration of things like weight. Weight management is preventative care and can make a huge impact on the wellness and your dog’s quality of life.

Yes. If you come to Angelus Pet Hospital and you use the products that we recommend, we will not only keep your dog and cat flea and tick free, but we'll also keep your house flea-free. And that's really important because fleas and ticks can transmit diseases to humans and cause discomfort. So we want to make sure that that's not part of your family or your dog's life. So yes, they're all very preventable.

So puppies have a particular set of needs as far as extra dewormings and a series of vaccines. We're going to prepare them for life by good training, diet recommendations, and exercise routines. And then as the dog goes through the average stages of life and into geriatric time, we are going to change our recommendations as far as how often we're going to do lab work and what kind of testing we're going to be doing and things that we're looking for to ensure that their quality of life is its very best.