When you adopt a pet, you don’t just bring a dog or cat into your house, you become the parent of your fur babies. You’ll cry when your fish dies, you’ll worry if your bird seems off their seed, you’ll fret when your dog is left alone while you’re at work and you’ll stress if your cat stays out later than normal. Animal lovers are a warm and friendly breed, at least with animals and really can’t comprehend that there are people who don’t want pets. Sure they can understand that a cat person might not be so into dogs or that a bird fancier might not be the greatest fan of cats but the idea that there are people who just don’t want to share their lives with an animal is beyond comprehension.

Thankfully, vets are not that sort of person – most people who become vets did so not because they wanted to spend years in medical training trying to understand a patient who couldn’t just tell them where it hurts or give a comprehensive patient history. They became vets because they love animals and they want to ensure that the pets who are so beloved are well looked after.

What Does A Vet Do?

Having a good relationship with your vet makes life so much easier and your vet should be your first port of call for any concerns that you have regarding your pet – more so if this is the first time you have been the caretaker of this particular type of animal or even breed. Each animal and each breed type all have different requirements for care, for treatment and different known concerns.

Your vet isn’t just there to help your pet when they’re ill, they are there to ensure that your pet stays healthy from the start. The first thing you can discuss with your vet is how to care for your pet. If you make an appointment with someone like https://abbotsfordvet.com/ as soon your new pet joins your household, you can ensure that you are establishing healthy routines and a good diet from the start.

Things that you can look to your vet to help with include:

• Advice on feeding through the stages (puppy, adolescent, adult, senior) and for the different breeds (a Great Dane has different feeding requirements than a chihuahua). This also becomes an issue if your furry friend is carrying a bit too much weight. Obesity is a problem in pets and it can dramatically shorten their lives and well as causing a host of weight related health concerns and issues.
• Vaccinations – don’t miss these, some of the diseases that unvaccinated animals can get are incredibly cruel ways to die.
• Behavior and training – whether you are looking at trying to toilet train a puppy, help your older cat to stop peeing in the corner or teach your bird to come back to its cage, your vet can point you in the right direction. Of particular importance is obedience training for dogs. Even if you have a small dog, they can still get away from you and bite with disastrous consequence. At the very least you want to be able to have you dog walk gently on a leash and to come back when you call them.
• Flea and parasite prevention – including worms and ticks which can affect a variety of species.
• Tattoo and Microchipping – if your pet is ever lost, you will want to know that whoever takes pity on your poor pet and wants to get them back home to you will be able to. Tattoos and microchips are able to provide information to help you be contacted (click here for an overview).
• Surgery & Medical – This is probably the service that most people are aware of – if your pet is injured or ill you will go to the vet to help them get well. However, do you know who to contact if your pet becomes ill after hours? Most vets have an after hours contact with a vet that works on-call. Some even have ‘health lines’ that can talk you through concerns. But these are things you will want to find out before an emergency occurs.
• Reproduction – whether you want to breed your pet or you want to ensure that they don’t breed, your vet is the one to speak to. Particularly in the case of cats and dogs where you if aren’t breeding them then you should be looking at ensuring they aren’t going to be producing unwanted kittens and puppies.
• You may be surprised at how often dental concerns are the underlying cause of other health problems. How to care you’re your pets teeth, particularly dogs and cats, is something that people often are unaware of. Yet teeth can be the cause of not just bad breath but also weight loss and a lot of pain if your animal isn’t able to eat food. A fussy cat may not actually be all that fussy (although, in fairness they probably are) but certain foods may be easier to eat with a painful tooth than others.
• Mental health – as animals age their cognitive function can start to deteriorate, although medication may be able to alleviate some of the symptoms or slow the effects, often a vet will be able to offer advice on how to help both you and your pet cope with decreasing function. It may be as simple as introducing a litter box and reducing the space to keep them safe or there be more advanced suggestions.
• Testing – from diagnostic testing such as x-rays or hearing tests to preventative testing such as diabetes and other blood tests, your vet is able to offer advice as to which tests would be helpful to keeping your bet at prime condition.
• Medication – Of course your licensed and registered vet is able to prescribe medication should your pet need it. From antibiotics to pain reliever, from supplements to suppressants, just as a human doctor is able to prescribe medication to help you when your sick, your vet has the best interests in helping your fur baby get well as soon as possible.

To read more on topics like this, check out the health category.