The preventive measures you can take for your pet’s long-term health include, vaccinations, heartworm testing, and intestinal parasite testing.
Dogs will be protected with inoculations against distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis, parainfluenza, parvo virus, kennel cough, and of course rabies. We also recommend influenza and rattle snake vaccinations.
Cat immunizations include feline panleukopenia (distemper), rabies, feline rhinotracheitis, calicivirus, chlamydia, and feline leukemia.
The frequency of vaccinations will depend on a variety of factors (e.g., animal's age, vaccination history, potential exposures, manufacturer's duration protection of the vaccine, geographic location).
Dr. Clark will recommend a schedule consistent with your pet's individual lifestyle. Puppies and kittens receive natural immunity against many diseases within the first few hours of life from their mother's milk (the colostrums) but this protection is short-lived.
Our staff will recommend:
- A vaccination program that will protect your puppy or kitten against the many serious, life-threatening diseases to which young animals are susceptible.
- Laboratory tests to ensure that your little friend is free of potentially debilitating and fatal internal parasites (which also may be transmitted to humans). Early detection and treatment is critical to your entire family's health.
Dr. Clark and her staff are eager to provide accurate information and explanations about new puppy or kitten behavior, offer practical strategies to prevent problems of developing pets, or give advice to correct early behavioral problems.
Each puppy and kitten is also thoroughly checked for external parasites, proper development of the eyes, ears and teeth as well as internal organ systems and congenital or nutritional defects.
Inadvertently, someone in the family leaves open the back door, and your young dog does not yet know its way home Or your older dog, who has been losing its way due to declining senses, wanders aimlessly in the neighborhood. Your feline friend does not come through its cat door when expected.
You call out, jump in the car to scour the area and phone the local animal shelter before your beloved pet is considered a “stray” and faces the potential of being euthanized.
There is a solution. Microchips are implanted under the skin as painlessly as a vaccination. This is a lifelong way to identify your pet. The chip contains pertinent information that can be read by a special scanner, reuniting the two of you before a mistaken euthanasia has occurred.