Wellness and Preventive Care - Vet in Red Deer | Cedarwood Veterinary Hospital

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Gold-Standard Care

For gold-hearted pets.

Wellness Visits

Cedarwood Veterinary & Animal Emergency Hospital offers a comprehensive suite of services designed for illness prevention and early detection to allow your pet to live a longer, healthier life. Wellness and preventive care services include physical examinations, vaccinations, parasite control, microchipping, and nutritional recommendations that we tailor to your pet’s needs and adjust according to their life stage.

Annual or biannual wellness visits for adult and senior pets allow for preventive care services and early problem detection, when we can more likely slow or stop disease progression. Aging pets are more likely to develop disease, and subtle signs can easily be overlooked at home. During your pet’s wellness visit, our veterinarian will examine them from head to tail, discuss any concerning findings, and possibly recommend additional testing or treatments based on exam findings or your pet’s age. Common conditions discovered during wellness visits or additional wellness tests include:

Arthritis
Dental disease
Heart disease
Lumps and bumps
Kidney or liver disease

Wellness and Preventive Care

Vaccinations

Puppies and kittens require frequent veterinary visits during their first few months to check for proper growth and development, develop a vaccination program to prevent serious diseases, and address parasites. These visits also provide our team with opportunities to answer your questions about puppy and kitten care and ensure you have the knowledge and tools for their optimal health care. At each visit, we’ll completely examine your puppy or kitten, administer core vaccinations, run appropriate screening tests, and discuss behavior, training, socialization, spay or neuter procedures, grooming, dental care, and breed-specific health concerns.

Vaccinations protect your pet from deadly diseases by helping their immune system recognize and destroy organisms that can make them sick. Some disease-causing organisms, including the rabies virus and Leptospirosis, can be passed from pets to people, so these vaccinations keep not only your pet but also your human family safe. We recommend a complete core vaccination series that includes a rabies and distemper combination for all puppies and kittens, and boosters for adult and senior pets periodically to maintain adequate protection. We offer a range of additional vaccinations for dogs and cats with varying lifestyles and tailor your pet’s protocol to their specific needs.

Puppy and Kitten Visits

Parasite Prevention

Parasites are everywhere in our environment, and many have unique life cycles that allow them to flourish under extraordinary circumstances. The most problematic pet parasites in Canada include fleas, ticks, intestinal parasites, and heartworms, whose effects can range from nuisance itching and hair loss to allergic reactions, serious disease transmission, blood loss, weight loss, heart failure, or death.

We can treat most parasites that we discover on examination, or through routine blood and fecal testing, but treatment is generally more difficult and expensive than prevention. Parasite preventives have evolved and now offer more effective, longer-lasting products that use a variety of delivery methods. Our team will work with you to find the best products to keep your pet healthy and parasite-free.

Microchipping

If your pet becomes lost without identification, research shows the chances of their return are pretty dismal. Collars and tags are sometimes effective, but they can be damaged, fall off, or intentionally break away for your pet’s safety. Microchipping is an easy, inexpensive method of permanent identification for your pet to increase your chances of a successful reunion. The microchip is a tiny device—about the size of a rice grain—implanted under your pet’s skin during a routine outpatient visit. An animal hospital or shelter can scan your pet’s microchip, which is linked to your contact information, when your pet is found. We recommend microchipping all pets to help prevent the devastation of losing your beloved companion.

Nutritional Counseling

Dogs and cats each have unique nutritional requirements that change and evolve over their lifetime. The right food for your pet will contain the proper vitamin, mineral, energy, and macronutrient balance to accommodate their life stage and health needs. However, choosing a food can be challenging, since the pet food market is ever-expanding, and marketing tactics can confuse well-meaning pet owners. Our veterinarians can help you find the best diet for your puppy, kitten, adult, or senior pet, while keeping your budget in mind. Pets with certain health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, allergies, or kidney disease, can benefit from specialized nutrition, and for them we may recommend a therapeutic or prescription diet.