Wellness Care

Yearly Wellness Check-ups

Preventive care is the key to keeping your pet healthy and a yearly wellness check-up is the cornerstone of any preventive care program. Regular exams help your veterinarian develop an overall picture of your pet's health and are essential to spotting medical problems before they become more difficult - and more costly - to treat. During your pet's yearly wellness check-up, we perform a head-to-toe appraisal of your pet's health. Our veterinarians check your pet's eyes, ears, nose and throat, examine the teeth and oral cavity, listen to the heart and lungs for signs of disease, palpate the abdomen, examine your pet's skin and coat, and more. These yearly exams are also an excellent opportunity for you to discuss with your veterinarian any recent changes in your pet's behavior or lifestyle.

Canine Care

Vaccinations

• Rabies
• Distemper (distemper, adenovirus, parvovirus, leptospirosis and parainfluenza)
• Bordetella (kennel cough) is recommended for any dogs that vacation at a boarding facility/kennel or like to run around at the Fort Wayne Dog Park.
• Lyme disease vaccine is recommended for those dogs that are likely to come into contact with ticks. Ticks like to live in areas with tall grass, fields and wooded areas, so if you like to go hiking, camping, or hunting, this would be an ideal vaccine for your dog.

Heartworm Testing: This blood test checks for the parasite Dirofilaria immitis. If left unchecked and untreated, this parasite(s) may grow up to 14 inches in length in your dog's heart, which will eventually cause heart disease, failure and death. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and New Haven Pet Hospital recommend yearly heartworm tests and keeping your pet on yearly heartworm preventatives.

Stool Analysis: By checking a small amount of your dog's stool every year, we are able to check for multiple types of intestinal parasites: roundworms, hookworms, whipworms and coccidia. Why is this so important? Some of these parasites are considered zoonotic - that is, they can be transferred from your pet to you and your children. New Haven Pet Hospital and the CDC recommend having your pet's stool checked at least once a year.

Feline Care

Vaccinations

• Rabies
• Distemper (rhinotracheites, panleukopenia, chlamydia and calicivirus)
• Feline Leukemia is recommended for cats that live in a multiple-cat household, live both indoors and outdoors or only live outdoors. Feline Leukemia is transferred through another cat's saliva. Even if your cat is not bitten by another cat, it can be transferred through licking, drinking out of the same water bowl, or even by hissing at each other. There is no cure for your cat once it has contracted the Feline Leukemia Virus.
• Feline Infectious Virus (FIV) is recommended for any cat that goes outdoors. The virus is very similar to AIDS in humans; it shuts down your cat's immune system so he or she is very susceptible to any viruses. Even a common upper-respiratory infection may eventually kill a cat with FIV. There is no cure for your cat once he or she has contracted the Feline Infectious Virus.

Stool Analysis: By checking a small amount of your cat's stool every year, we are able to check for multiple types of internal parasites: roundworms, hookworms, whipworms and coccidia. Why is this so important? Some of these parasites are considered zoonotic - that is, they can be transferred from your pet to you and your children. New Haven Pet Hospital and the CDC recommend having your pet's stool checked at least once a year.

Geriatric Care

Your dog or cat still may seem like a playful puppy, but most pets are considered "senior citizens" between the age of six and seven. When your faithful companion enters his or her golden years, preventive health care becomes increasingly important. New Haven Pet Hospital encourages our clients to bring their senior pets in for a special geriatric wellness exam. This exam includes all the procedures found in a routine annual exam, as well as a general health profile (GHP), a series of tests that assess the health of your pet's liver, kidneys and other major organs. The GHP also includes a complete blood count (CBC) and urinalysis. During a geriatric wellness exam, our veterinarians will also discuss with you nutrition requirements for your senior pet.

Behavior Consultations

Having difficulty with your pet's behavior? Dr. Riggs can help your pet overcome many common behavior problems, including:

• Aggression
• Biting Problems
• Inappropriate Elimination
• Dominance Issues
• Frequent Barking

Internal Medicine

Whether your pet has allergies that must be treated or needs help managing diabetes, the veterinarians at New Haven Pet Hospital are well-versed in the treatment of a great number of veterinary health problems. Here are a few of the diseases and disorders that we see on a daily basis:

• Neuromuscular Disorders
• Endocrine Diseases (Cushing's and Addison's Disease, thyroid problems)
• Allergies (Food, flea and climate/contact allergies)
• Arthritis
• Obesity
• Reproductive Disorders
• Gastrointestinal Problems
• Cardiac Disease

Microchipping

Every year, millions of pets are lost and many never make it home. According to the American Humane Association, only about 17 percent of lost dogs and 2 percent of lost cats find their way home. Microchipping your pet is a safe, easy way to help prevent this tragedy. A microchip is about the size of a grain of rice and is implanted underneath your pet's skin between the shoulder blades in a process similar to a vaccination. The microchip is encoded with a unique number that corresponds to an entry in a national pet identifcation database containing your pet's vital information. Animal hospitals and shelters across the country have scanners capable of reading these microchips; if your pet is lost, his or her microchip is scanned and you will be contacted - and reunited with your pet. We use the Home Again microchip system. Please ask our staff for more information about microchipping your pet.

Puppy/Kitten Wellness Packages

Congratulations on your newest family member! We can't wait to see your new puppy or kitten and get them started on the road to a happy and healthy life.

One of the many highlights of being in the veterinary field is seeing pets grow from a tiny kitten to a loving house cat; or watching a playful puppy go from rambunctiousness to man's best friend. There's no doubt about it: pets are great!

Our puppy/kitten appointments take longer than the yearly wellness visits that your pet will have when older. When you schedule your first appointment, be prepared to spend 45 to 60 minutes with us that day. Why does it take so long? Along with a head-to-tail examination of your pet by our veterinarians, the administration of vaccines and the first de-worming dose, our knowledgeable veterinary assistants cover many topics:

• Behavior
• Vaccines
• Intestinal Parasites and De-Worming
• Diet
• Heartworm Prevention
• Flea and Tick Prevention
• Zoonotic Diseases (these are diseases that can be passed from animal to human)
• Basic Grooming
• FeLV / FIV (kittens only)

Along with all of this important information, we will send home a free dose of heartworm prevention, a free bag of puppy or kitten food and lots of coupons and handouts.

Hint: This is really helpful for us - please bring your puppy or kitten to the clinic slightly hungry. We love to spoil them with treats and they tend to like coming to the hospital more in the future. We like them to remember the good stuff and not the bad stuff. (Do you remember when you would get a sucker for being good at the doctor's office?)

Emergency Care

If your pet requires emergency care outside hospital hours, we refer clients to the North East Indiana Veterinary Emergency Specialty Hospital (NEIVES).

NEIVES
5818 Maplecrest Rd.
Fort Wayne, IN 46835
260-426-1062

Click here for directions. NIEVES is located about 7.3 miles away from New Haven Pet Hospital.