PARK HILL VET: Happy In Every Season
Preventive Care And Other Tools to Keep Your Pets Healthy And Well Through Life
By Margot K. Vahrenwald, DVM, CVJ | For the GPHN
Welcome to National Pet Wellness month! The calendar is chock full of themes for days and months associated with pets, but this one is perhaps the most important opportunity to discuss preventive care.
Remember the phrase “An apple a day keeps the doctor away?” That may apply to humans, but the concept extends to your dogs and cats. There are plenty of things you can do to prevent potential visits to veterinary emergency clinics.
We see our patients in the different seasons of life — puppy/kitten, adult and senior/geriatric. Those, along with size and breed, have implications for what an individual pet needs to support their health. The term for this is “life-stage preventive care,” and each season is impacted by a pet’s biologic age, hereditary risks and local environmental health threats.
Chronologic age is the age that a pet is from birth onward in years, days and months, while biological age is the measure of how well their cells, tissues and organs are functioning. Just as in people, a cat or dog’s body and its functions age very differently, and our pets are also impacted by their size. A giant breed dog, such as a Mastiff, is going to age biologically much faster than a tiny Chihuahua.
What does each life stage need? Preventive care for puppies and kittens is the training of the immune system, with appropriate vaccinations at the right interval and time. Additionally, the growth and development phase from tiny creature to adulthood requires significant nutritional support with puppy or kitten food. The duration of feeding puppy food is dependent on when a pet reaches skeletal maturity. That is 12 months or longer for large and giant breed dogs; less for small pets.
For puppies and outdoor cats, prevention of internal and external parasites is needed. For dogs in Colorado, prevention against heartworms and ticks is necessary.
Adult pets are in their prime years and need an annual exam at a minimum. But their vaccinations will be timed to their age and area risks. Indoor-only cats do not need the leukemia vaccination after their initial kitten and year-one booster, while outdoor cats should continue the leukemia vaccine.
For dogs in particular, ticks are becoming an increasing threat in Colorado, and we want to screen annually for common tick-borne diseases, including Lyme, Ehrlichiosis and Anaplasma.
Aging is inevitable and every pet’s biologic age is at their own pace. But roughly, we start to see “senior” changes in cats and dogs age seven and older.
Their needs from their earlier years are unique, as they can develop chronic pain, suffer more injuries, painful periodontal disease and other insults of aging.
Here is where preventive care also becomes supportive care, as vaccinations can be less important while lab screening diagnostics such as blood and urine testing become our internal physical exam. Early diagnosis of arthritis and chronic kidney disease can offer the opportunity for support that maintains quality of life and mobility for longer.
National Pet Wellness month is a good reminder to check in with your veterinarian about your pets’ individual needs based on their life stage.
Dr. Margot Vahrenwald is the owner of Park Hill Veterinary Medical Center at 2255 Oneida St.