Preserving Your Companion’s Health with Pet Wellness Care in Hinsdale, IL
Routine vet visits are a necessity for your pet. Dogs and cats age 5-7 years for each human year, and because they age so rapidly, their health is prone to subtle changes that might fly under the radar if a veterinarian is not on hand to catch them! At Lane Veterinary, we’re advocates for proactive pet wellness care here in Hinsdale. It allows us to examine your pet from head to tail and recommend treatment if we happen to find anything suspicious. A lot can change in a year, but with our help, you can anticipate many of these changes and ensure a better life for your companion.
We’d love to see you and your pet for their next checkup!
Why Wellness Visits are Different with Us
Lane Veterinary practices Fear Free care. This means all our doctors, technicians, and other team members are trained to provide low-stress care and handling in an environment designed to induce a sense of calm. Additionally, we use pheromones, soothing music, and tasty treat distractions to make visits more enjoyable for your pet. They might not even realize they’re receiving treatment!
Are Annual Pet Wellness Exams Really Necessary?
We recommend annual exams for healthy adult dogs and cats, and biannual (twice-yearly) exams for senior pets. Senior pets are more prone to health issues, and more frequent exams allow us to monitor those issues.
The reason we recommend annual and biannual exams is to better understand your pet’s health from one year to the next. We also want to help you better understand your pet! Our goal is to develop a strong mutual understanding with you so you can trust our recommendations, and also feel empowered to make the best choices for your pet’s needs.
What to Expect During Your Pet’s Exam
At their first visit with us, we will establish a baseline of health for your dog or cat. During future checkups, we can use this baseline to better detect changes in their condition and recommend appropriate updates to their care regimen.
One of the most important aspects of the annual or biannual exam is being able to detect potential infections or diseases early enough to treat them before they can get worse. Dogs and cats do a fine job of hiding their illness, so early detection on our end is critical.
In addition to a physical, where we examine your pet from nose to tail and check their heart rate, respiration, temperature, and body weight, we may also:
- Run a fecal exam to check for various health issues, including intestinal parasites
- Provide deworming treatment if parasites are present
- Discuss your pet’s nutritional needs in detail and offer age-appropriate recommendations
- Run comprehensive bloodwork to evaluate health and organ function
- Perform heartworm and tick-borne disease testing (dogs only)
- Recommend and provide vaccine boosters
- Dispense parasite preventatives (recommended year-round)
- Microchip your pet (if they are not already chipped)
Our Parasite Control Recommendations for Dogs and Cats
We recommend year-round heartworm, flea, and tick prevention for dogs. Heartworm disease is spread by mosquito bites, and mosquitoes can survive inside our homes during the winter. Heartworm disease is difficult to treat in dogs and is a long process, so prevention is key.
In addition to mosquitoes and heartworm disease, ticks are prevalent, and they can also survive the winter. We recommend annual testing for heartworm and tick-borne illness in dogs, because you need a negative test to safely give your pet their preventatives.
Heartworm, flea, and tick prevention is lifestyle dependent for cats. They can get heartworm disease, but unlike dogs, there is no existing treatment for cats. For cats that go outdoors, heartworm prevention is a must. If your cat lives indoors only, we’d be happy to discuss their prevention options with you in more detail!
Have questions? Need an appointment? Get in touch with us today!