Annual Wellness Exams and Health Screens are Important for Your Pet

Annual wellness exams include a thorough yearly physical exam. The health screen involves taking blood and running tests on it to see if your pet has any organ dysfunction or disease.

Wellness exams are generally performed when your pet comes in for his annual vaccines. The exam includes checking the ears, eyes, nose, mouth, throat, listening to the heart and lungs, and feeling their abdomen. The exam is performed on dogs and cats of all ages and breeds.

Health screens involve testing blood for liver problems, diabetes, kidney failure, and anemia and other organ problems. This allows the veterinarian to actually look inside of your pet and determine if he or she is sick on the inside, even if your pet looks OK on the outside. It has been said that this is a way for your pet to talk about their health, even though they cannot talk.

Wellness exams and health screens enable veterinarians to detect problems and diseases much earlier than before, and as a result, treat them more successfully. Veterinarians cannot always cure diseases that they detect this way, but earlier detection allows patients to live longer and have a better quality of life.

Human medical doctors perform these same tests on their patients annually. Pets age at about four to seven years for each human year of age. Therefore, your pet is tested the equivalent of only once every four to seven years. Annual wellness and health exams reassure pet owners that their pet is healthy on the inside and the outside. If your pet does have a problem, and it is detected in the early stages, treatment can be more successful. I encourage every pet owner to have their pet examined annually and either have a blood screen done on their pet, or at least discuss it with their veterinarian.