Wellness Care
Wellness and preventative care is the cornerstone of any healthcare program. We love to prevent diseases and screen for other problems before they become overwhelming. What does good wellness care for our pets look like? It starts with an annual exam to check up on their overall health. At an annual exam, your pet will receive a nose to tail physical exam by our skilled veterinarians. This is also a great time to ask our staff any questions you may have about things you are seeing at home. Anything from eating habits to behavior can be covered!
Vaccinations are also usually done at an annual exam. Recommendations for vaccines will be made based on your pet’s lifestyle.
Dogs
We recommend rabies and DAP vaccines for all dogs (rabies is required by law). Leptospirosis is a vaccination we recommend for most dogs. Leptospirosis is a bacteria spread by common wildlife (skunks, deer, rabbits, etc) in their urine. In Colorado Springs, these animals are abundant so the likelihood that your dog is exposed to them is very high. We recommend the Bordetella vaccination for any dog that routinely hangs out with other dogs or does any boarding/day care activities. The influenza vaccine is recommended for any dogs that will be boarded or regularly go to doggie daycare. The rattlesnake vaccine is available to dogs that like to go hiking, hunting or spend a lot of time in rural areas where these snakes can be found. That vaccine is recommended to start in March/April for peak efficacy during rattlesnake season here.
Cats
Cats should have a rabies vaccine (required by law) and a FVRCP vaccine. If your cat is an outdoor adventurer, we recommend they have the feline leukemia vaccine.
Wellness Screenings
With any annual exam we offer screenings for internal diseases. Our physical exams can only catch things we can see or feel. We cannot detect things like early kidney or liver disease, parasitic infections, or other internal changes. For this reason, we offer a wellness panel that does a thorough blood screening to check for kidney, liver and thyroid changes, screens for tick borne disease, heartworm disease and a fecal parasite screening to check for intestinal parasites. For dogs, it also includes a heartworm and tick disease panel.
Parasite Prevention
While Colorado does enjoy a lower parasite load than other states, we are not free of them by any means. With our changing weather patterns, we recommend year-round heartworm prevention, which also protects your pet against intestinal parasites like hookworms and roundworms. Flea and tick prevention should also be used. These parasite populations are on the rise and dogs that do a lot of outdoor adventures should be using flea and tick prevention year-round to prevent tick-borne diseases.
