Senior Pet Care

As a loving pet owner, some aspects of senior care will come naturally to you. Your aging animal needs your love, attention, and time – but we don’t need to tell you that.

What we should tell you is that senior animals have specific dietary, exercise, and oral health needs. For this reason, we recommend that animals over a certain age come into our clinic more often. While we typically see senior pets annually, additional visits may be recommended by the doctor based on your pet’s individual needs.

These extra visits will give us a better chance of catching medical problems early. Each time, our healthcare team will perform these checks:

• Complete physical examination
• Rectal examination
• Oral examination
• Evaluation of ears, eyes, and organs

We will also check your pet’s weight and perform any necessary lab work. And if your animal is more than seven years old, we will try to obtain a complete blood count, thyroid screening, and biochemistry profile. From there, we will move forward with a treatment plan for any problems we identify.

At Montpelier Veterinary Hospital, we place great importance on preventative medicine – especially for our elderly patients. Regular blood screenings allow us to catch and treat diseases early.

Bring your pet in for annual bloodwork. Our team will perform a biochemistry profile, thyroid screening, and complete blood count. While we offer in-house bloodwork for quick results, we may also send samples to an external lab if needed and if the patient is okay with it, ensuring the most accurate results and treatment.

As your pet ages, their kidneys become more vulnerable to inflammation and infection. Unfortunately, these issues often go unnoticed until nearly 75% of the organ becomes dysfunctional. The good news is that, with urinalysis, we don’t have to wait that long to diagnose a problem.

We may recommend a urinalysis based on your pet’s specific health concerns or symptoms. This test helps us monitor kidney function and can also identify conditions like diabetes, urinary tract infections, or kidney stones.

Is your pet slowing down, gaining weight, or walking with a limp? Simple aging could be the root of the problem. Or, there could be an undiagnosed illness at work. Although your pet can’t give us the answers directly, diagnostic imaging can.

An x-ray is non-invasive and allows us to look closer at the internal workings of your pet. If we suspect that your animal has arthritis, organ failure, or an underlying injury, diagnostic imaging will give us more information.