Preventative Care at Waterloo Animal Hospital

At Waterloo Animal Hospital in Edmond, OK we believe that preventative care is the best type of veterinary care. It’s much healthier, and less expensive, to keep your pet from getting sick than it is to treat an illness.  We recommend that all our pet parents schedule biannual or annual wellness exams for their dogs and cats, to make sure they live happy and healthy lives.

What a Veterinarian Does During a Wellness Examination

Just like your annual checkup with the doctor, your pet’s visit with us will cover all basic aspects of their overall health.  We’ll give your pet a nose-to-tail examination designed to discover a wide range of physical problems.  Some of the most important parts of a wellness checkup include:

• Weighing your pet regularly to track changes in weight
• Checking skin and hair coat for abnormalities, allergies or growths
• Careful oral exam to identify dental disease or lesions in the mouth
• Consultation about behavior, diet, geriatric care and preventative therapies

Other Forms of Preventative Care

While a pet wellness examination is the most important part of preventative care, we offer a wide variety of other services designed to help keep your pet healthy.  Beginning with your pet’s very first puppy and kitten visit, we’ll begin to administer important vaccinations, perform a fecal exam and send home complimentary heartworm prevention.  At this first visit we will educate you on the recommended frequency of puppy vaccines, information on diet and recommendations for flea, tick, heartworm and intestinal parasite prevention.

Parasite prevention is very important in Oklahoma. Our area is known to have heavy infestation of both internal and external parasites, which exposes your pet to other parasite transmitted diseases.  The fecal examination will reveal the presence of internal parasites and we will carefully examine your puppy or kitten for any external parasites.

Weight management in dogs and cats is very important as rapid changes in weight (losing or gaining weight) can indicate the presence of underlying disease.  Yearly bloodwork is recommended to monitor your pets systemic health, and to screen for common diseases which can be treated and addressed by us.

Finally, spaying and neutering your pet is important for many reasons. This eliminates the chance of unwanted puppies and decreased roaming in male dogs.  Spaying and neutering your pets also decreases the risk of them developing certain cancers, uterine infections/diseases and prostate disease.

Keeping your pet happy and healthy is our primary goal, and that starts with a pet wellness exam once or twice a year.  If your pet is overdue, give us a call at 405-341-4747 and we’ll schedule an appointment today.