General Health Guidelines

Vaccinations

Your pet should be current on its rabies and distemper combination vaccinations as well as any additional vaccinations that you feel would best protect your pet from contagious disease. There are a number of other vaccinations available so if you are wondering if there is something that your pet is missing, please call.

Deworming

All pets should be dewormed at least once yearly. Puppies and kittens need frequent deworming within the first 6 months of life. Older pets may need to be dewormed more often if they are living in environments where there is greater exposure.

Flea and Tick Prevention

All pets should receive some type of flea and tick prevention. This not only protects them from bringing the fleas and ticks into your home, it also prevents the possible transmission of infectious diseases that the fleas and tick may carry. We recommend Frontline for dogs and Revolution for cats. These products need to be applied once monthly for best protection.

Heartworm Preventative

Heartworm disease is transmitted by the mosquito. The disease is hard to treat but easy to prevent. We recommend testing animals for the disease prior to starting them on the preventative. Preventatives are given once monthly in the form of a chewable treat. We recommend Heartgard Plus. This product will also help deworm your pet. There is both a dog and a cat Heartgard. Yes, even cats can get heartworm.

The doctor may recommend having a heartworm test done on your dog even if you have been giving Heartgard. It depends on when your dog was last tested. Dogs that are only given the preventative seasonally may be asked more frequently to be tested for heartworms. A simple blood test can be performed to make sure they do not have the heartworm infection prior to giving Heartgard.

Heartgard is not the treatment for heartworm disease. Adulticide therapy which consists of the drug melarsomine is expensive and dogs can go into shock, DIC, and die as the worms are being killed off by the medicine. There is currently no therapy to treat cats that are infected with heartworm. This is why the preventative is so important and is the right health choice for your pet.