Services

Wellness care

Keeping pets healthy is our primary goal, preventing disease so that they can live a long, happy life.

Vaccinations: we will discuss your pet’s lifestyle to make recommendations for appropriate vaccinations. We follow the American Animal Hospital Association’s recommendations for dosing intervals for dogs and the American Association of Feline Practitioners recommendations for cats.
- Dog core vaccinations
  - Rabies
  - Distemper
- Dog lifestyle vaccinations
  - Leptospirosis
  - Bordetella
  - Lyme
  - Influenza (bivalent)
- Cat core vaccinations: We use only Purevax vaccines for cats, as they are safest for our feline patients.
  - Rabies (1 or 3 year available)
  - Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis/Calici/Panleukopenia
- Cat lifestyle vaccination
  - Feline Leukemia (recommended in kittens and any adult cats that go outside)
Heartworm testing: annual in all dogs
Fecal testing: annual in all cats and dogs
Young adult and senior screening lab work: catching abnormalities on labwork before your pets start to feel sick gives us the best opportunity to make adjustments and figure out what’s causing these abnormalities to prevent or slow the progression of disease.
Heartworm prevention: we offer Proheart-12 and Proheart-6 as injectable heartworm preventatives and can discuss the many options for oral and topical heartworm preventatives given monthly.
Flea/tick prevention: in our area, year-round use of flea/tick prevention is strongly recommended, as these do not go away in the winter! Ticks are active down to 40 degrees and fleas spend most of their lives on animals, so can survive even colder temperatures.
Nutrition recommendations: we can help you navigate the wide variety of pet diets on the market. We are familiar with many diets that meet the recommendations established by WSAVA (a global veterinary heath community) and can help find a diet to meet your pet’s needs and your nutritional goals.

Dentistry

Oral care in pets is one of the most important ways to keep pets healthy. Dental disease causes pain and inflammation throughout the body and can worsen kidney and heart disease, among others. We recommend routine cleaning before dental disease progresses to the point of losing teeth, but often disease progresses over time such that extractions are needed. Thankfully, pets do extremely well without a full set of teeth and owners often notice how much more playful their pet is after getting rid of the pain and infection in their mouth. All pets undergoing anesthesia will have a physical exam the morning of the procedure and pre-operative bloodwork within 30 days of the procedure to look for any underlying conditions that might affect anesthesia or the procedure. We use multi-modal pain management with our dental extractions before, during, and after the procedure to help your pet heal and get back to eating and playing as quickly as possible.

All of our dental procedures include:

Full anesthesia with IV fluids
A dedicated person to monitor anesthesia. We use our eyes and ears as well as electronic monitoring equipment to monitor heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, temperature, blood oxygenation, and expiratory carbon dioxide.
Warming therapy during the procedure
Cleaning and oral charting
Full mouth dental radiographs (x-ray)
Extractions when indicated. We will communicate with you if referral for advanced procedures may help your pet.

Surgery

From routine procedures to more advanced procedures, the safety and comfort of your pet are our top priorities. All pets coming in for surgery will be closely monitored before, during, and after their procedure. Our surgical table is heated to prevent your pet from becoming chilled during a procedure. We also use hot air blankets to warm them up in recovery if they became chilly during their surgery. We use an electrocautery unit to decrease bleeding and improve pain management and recovery for most of our surgeries. All pets undergoing anesthesia will have a physical exam the morning of the procedure and pre-operative bloodwork within 30 days of the procedure to look for any underlying conditions that might affect anesthesia or the procedure. Pain management is provided before, during, and after surgery and is adjusted as needed based on your pet’s response.

Surgeries we perform include:

Spay, neuter
Mass/tumor removal
Biopsy
Foreign body exploratory surgery
Limb amputations
Eyelid mass removal and entropion correction
Gastropexy
Vulvaplasty
Bladder surgery
C-section: scheduled and emergency during office hours (depending on availability)

Illness

Even with the best preventative care, illness and injuries occur. We are equipped with in-house laboratory, ultrasound, and x-ray as well as sending out labwork and imaging reviews to reference laboratories to work up your pet.

Skin and ears: allergies and skin infections often require life-long management. Flare-ups from time to time are common, especially with the wide range of allergens in our area. We will work with you through the flare-ups and come up with a long term strategy to manage your pet’s skin.
Vomiting, diarrhea: there are many causes of GI upset, some mild and quick to resolve and some needing more of a workup. We take into account many factors related to your pet to recommend the best course of action to get them feeling better.
Lethargy: sometimes the only way animals let us know they aren’t feeling well is just not acting right. We use our physical exam findings as well as diagnostics to try to get to the bottom of why your pet isn’t feeling well
Chronic disease management: many diseases require regular labwork and adjustments in medication or diet. We work to diagnose these diseases and help get your pet stable on their medications. Sometimes these diseases need further workup with a specialist, and we can then coordinate ongoing care as a team. Some of the diseases we commonly see include:
- Diabetes
- Kidney disease
- Cushing’s Disease
- Addison’s Disease
- Hypertension
- Heart Disease
- Seizures
Ophthalmology (eyes): Squinting, rubbing, redness, or discharge can all be signs of disease in or around the eye. We have testing in house for corneal ulcers, dry eye, and glaucoma.
Lameness (limping): Limping is how an animal tells us that they are in pain. We perform an orthopedic exam to try to find the source of this pain and make a recommendation on management.

Aging care

Pain management: we have multiple types of supplements and medication we can use to manage chronic pain in pets. We can also discuss complementary therapies to help with joint mobility and muscle mass
Behavioral and cognitive management: some pets have behavioral changes as they age. We can work to help develop a plan, sometimes using medications, to maintain the bond you have with your pet
End of life management: we offer euthanasia to allow pets to die peacefully and with dignity. You can choose to be present with your pet for as much of this process as you feel comfortable with. Please let us know any questions or concerns you have with the procedure and comfort with family members being present.
Cremation: You can choose to have your pet’s ashes returned to you in a decorative urn or to have a community cremation in which ashes are not returned. Paw prints and other memorials are available as well.

Diagnostics

We use a full in house laboratory and send out reference laboratory. Same-day or urgent labwork can be performed in house to get a diagnosis quickly. Most of our routine wellness labwork is sent out to the lab, with results coming back within a few days.
Radiographs (x-ray): The radiographs are interpreted by our doctors in house and also sent off for radiology review. Some animals may need to be sedated to allow diagnostic quality images.
Ultrasound: We use ultrasound to look for fluid in the chest or abdomen, confirm pregnancy, or look for masses.
In-house cytology for skin, ears, and other routine issues or send-out for more complex issues

Behavior

Please schedule a consult at the first sign of trouble with your pet’s behavior. The sooner we start to address problem behaviors, the better chance we have of a manageable solution. Behavioral management requires a lot of homework and follow-up. We often need to use medications, depending on the severity of the problem, either short term or long term. We will also discuss with you when referral to a board certified behaviorist is recommended.

Fear Free

Our doctors and most support staff are certified Fear Free Practitioners. This means that we commit to making your pet’s experience low stress. You are an important member of that process and may need to do some homework to make sure your pet is set up for success. Sometimes it may take a few more visits at the beginning to find the right combination of rewards and medication for an individual pet, but know that this pays off in the long run as we decrease the risks of your pet’s fear of veterinary procedures escalating over time.

Some of the ways we incorporate Fear Free into our practice include:

Use of pheromones to make pets feel more comfortable
Calming colors on the walls, floors, and our clothing
Separate exam room and hospitalization area for cats
An exam room that enters right from the sidewalk to allow reactive dogs to avoid the lobby
Strategies to provide a visual barrier between patients
Performing as many procedures as possible in the exam room, with owners present
Non-reflective surface on cages to decrease noise and slipping with primarily horizontal bars on the cage doors to decrease visual obstruction
LED lights throughout the building, which are quieter for sensitive pet ears
Sound barriers around all rooms