Last week was Nellie’s annual vet visit. Nellie turned 11 years old last October so it is important that she gets an exam if not once a year two to three times a year to make sure her senior body hasn’t changed. I think Nellie is fine and don’t have any concerns for the doctor.

The nice technician Margret drew Nellie’s blood for her annual heartworm blood check and for her chemistry panel. Each year I have at least a chemistry panel run on Nellie to check her internal organ functions in hopes that everything is fine but if not hopefully I will catch abnormalities early so they can be treated early. Things that the chemistry panel will check for is diabetes, liver and kidney functions. At some visits I will have a thyroid and a complete blood count run to make sure everything is a-ok in that area.

It’s important to have the eyes examined each year. As dogs become seniors their vision can change. They can develop cataracts, glaucoma and other eye diseases that could impede on your dogs vision.

I have noticed that Nellie’s hearing isn’t as well as it used to be. This is one of the first things people notice in their pets as they get older. When their hearing isn’t what it used to be you first need to rule out a ear infection. Nellie’s ears are clean and no signs of infection.

As pets age they tend to build up tarter on their teeth if preventative measures haven’t been taken to keep the tartar off the teeth. The best way to get the tartar off the teeth when it has hardened on the teeth is to have a dental cleaning done which requires general anesthesia so the pet’s don’t aspirate the water from the cleaning. There is always a risk when putting your pet under anesthesia so it’s best to try and prevent the tartar from building up. The way I prevent the tartar from building up on Nellie’s teeth is by giving her hard things to chew on mainly bones from Jones Natural Chews. She is a chewer so all the chewing acting on the hard bones scrapes the tartar off. She hasn’t had a “real” dental cleaning her whole life. I polished her teeth when she was under anesthesia for her spay back when she was 7 years old so for a senior dog her teeth are amazing. Some people don’t like giving hard bones as they can break the dogs teeth but knock on wood none of my dogs have broken teeth from bones so I will continue to give them.

Dr. Hartay listening to Nellie’s heart. As pet’s get older their heart can change and they can develop heart murmurs that can be there and not cause a problem but their are other murmurs that mean their is something going on with the heart whether it is from a tumor or heart failure. Nellie’s father Norman had a grade one murmur when he got older but Nellie doesn’t have any murmur’s as of yet.

A abdominal palpation should be done to check for tumors in the abdomen. Last summer I thought Nellie may have a tumor in her abdomen so I had a ultrasound done and it showed there were not tumors.

Lymphoma can arise in any pet at anytime so it is a good idea to palpate the lymph nodes often to make sure their size and shape hasn’t changed which is a indication that cancer maybe present. They lymph nodes can change when they are having a reaction to something else that is happening in the body.

Nellie was due for her canine Rabies vaccination which is given every there years. It is the WI state law that your pet be vaccinated for Rabies since it is a fatal disease for pets and humans. She also received her Distemper combo and Bordetella. With all the traveling I do with my dogs and working at the vet clinic I don’t want to bring anything home to Nellie. Seniors and young dogs have a higher risk for developing diseases.

At least once a year a stool sample should be done to check for intestinal parasites. If it is winter time you need to collect the sample pretty much when it comes out of the dog so it doesn’t have time to freeze, we can’t run a frozen sample or a old dry one if it is summer. The lovely technician will do a physical exam on your dogs poop to look for tapeworms, blood, mucus or anything else that may lead to a problem. The poop will then get set up to be analysed under a microscope to check for intestinal parasite eggs that can’t be seen with the naked eye.

Once again I am posting up the cool fecal scoring chart by Purina Veterinary Diets. It gives you an idea what is normal and abnormal in poop.

Nellie had a great visits, no surprises everything seems to be going well for her!

Today is National Dress Up Your Pet Day so of course I had to dig in the archives and post up a couple photos of my pets dressed up as we all know I do some crazy dress up with them.

 Have fun dressing up your pet today!

We are joining Linda at 2browndawgs and Jodi at Heart Like A Dog for this great blog hop.