At Lifetime Pet Centers our focus is annual, routine wellness care for your pet. We believe that proper prevention prolongs your pet's life while improving the quality.
A big part of annual and semi-annual wellness care for your pet is routine blood work. Blood work is especially important if your pet is on medications, over the age of 7, is coming in for an anesthetic procedure, or has any health issues. Additionally, even if your pet is happy and healthy; doing a blood panel at the time of their routine annual exam will give us a normal reference range for your pet should they become ill in the future.
Blood tests help us determine causes of illness accurately, safely, and quickly and let us monitor the progress of medical treatments. We can do all routine blood work in our hospitals, and send out other samples to our lab. Because we can do most of our blood work in-house we can diagnose your pet quickly if there is a problem and start the appropriate treatments right away.
The most common tests that we run are Complete Blood Counts (CBCs), Blood Serum Chemistries, heartworm tests on dogs, and leukemia/FIV tests on cats.
A CBC gives us information regarding your pet’s hydration status, anemia, infection, the blood’s clotting ability, and the immune system’s ability to respond. This test is essential for pets with fevers, vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, pale gums, or loss of appetite. If your pet needs surgery, a CBC can detect unseen abnormalities.
Blood serum chemistries evaluate organ function, electrolyte status, hormone levels, and more. They are extremely important in evaluating the health of older pets, pets with vomiting and diarrhea or toxin exposure, pets receiving long-term medications, and pre-anesthetic patients.
Heartworm tests on dogs determine if your dog is positive for the parasite. We recommend this test yearly, even if they are on prevention. Also, leukemia/FIV testing determines the status of the diseases in cats. We recommend this test anytime you bring in a new kitten or adult cat into your household. Once your cat has tested negative and been vaccinated, you do not need to retest.
If you have any questions regarding annual wellness care for your pets contact us at either office, or email me at [email protected].