Have You Made Resolutions for Your Pet for 2025?

It’s a Brand New Year!  Have You Made Resolutions for Your Pet for 2025?

Hopefully you are doing better than the majority of Americans with your own 2025 resolutions and goals.  If you are still on track, congratulate yourself. You are doing better than most Americans.  We often make important lifestyle and health related goals and aspirations this time of year.  It can be an excellent way to develop new healthy habits and positive changes in our lives.

Did you know that your pet (and your vet) would love for you to add in one or two new healthy habits for your pets’ health and comfort too?  If you can accomplish them all every year, you are an amazing overachiever.  Pat yourself on the back.  However, if life is already busy enough for you to keep up with the day to day demands, even making one or two consistent changes each year can really add up as you build healthy pet parent habits.  We’ve made a list for you of resolutions we think can have the biggest impact on your furry family members’ quality of life.

1.  Battle of the Bulge – We often make weight related goals for ourselves each year.  Include your pet in this goal.  A pet that is an ideal weight lives up to 2 years longer than those that have packed on the pounds.  Two years is a lot of extra time to love and cuddle them!  Many pet owners don’t realize their four-legged friends are overweight.  But 60% of the pets we see each year fall into this category.  We will have a future article going into tips and tricks to help your pet slim down.  Start decreasing the overall amount fed slowly and be sure you are measuring the daily food intake.  Don’t leave down an all you can eat buffet.  Keep your pet active and include them in your new activity goals for the year.  We are happy to give tailored advice for your individual pet and situation.  Several small changes can really add up to progress.  We are here for you.  Ask us for help in making a specific plan.

2. Don’t Visit Only When They Are Sick - Dogs and cats age 7 and younger should have annual exams.  They cannot communicate with us when they have subtle or smaller signs of illness (like a headache or fatigue or a toothache).  These family members are like infants and very young children in that regard.  Only they come with an added challenge of being masters of hiding illness and pain.  Finding small issues early is essential to preventing progression to major problems.  A careful oral exam, discussion of diet, evaluation of the joints, and discussion about weight and body condition are essential to keep you pet happy and healthy.  After age 7 (or after age 5 if you are an amazing giant dog > #100) the aging process begins to speed up and increasing the exam frequency to every 6 months is recommended.

3. Vaccines Save Lives - In the human world we know that vaccines have eradicated and massively diminished the incidence of many major diseases.  This is also true in the animal world.  Rabies is required by law for dogs and in many places for cats as well.  However, many other diseases can be transmitted in an airborne way from wildlife and other neighborhood dogs (distemper, kennel cough, herpesvirus in cats, calicivirus in cats).  Others are transmitted through urine and stool and persist in damp environments and cause exposure.  The vaccines we offer truly save lives and keep your pet and the human public (rabies, leptospirosis) healthy.

4. Prevent the Creepy Crawlies Year- Round - Most people know about the importance of heartworm and flea / tick prevention.  They truly keep your pet healthier and alive longer.  But did you know that we have hundreds of cases of tick- borne disease transmission even through the winter in Wisconsin?  We have enough days above freezing in every month of the year that it is essential to provide year-round protection.  These preventatives also help eliminate and reduce intestinal parasites that can affect the health of people as well.  The CDC recommends deworming of outdoor cats every 3 months to decrease the shedding of dangerous roundworm and hookworm eggs into the environment.  These parasites can have life-threatening implications for human children and their prevention is so important.  Deworming can be done here in one simple easy painless step in the office.  Let us help.

5.  Peek at the Poop -   No, I don’t mean visually.  Most parasites are not visible to the naked eye.  The stool needs to be examined at least annually for parasite eggs and live organisms by sending a sample to the lab.  Dogs are heavily impacted by the nature of their social and outdoor lifestyle, as are outdoor cats.  It’s gross to think about but anywhere you see a lot of dogs being walked, that grass and soil is contaminated to a heavy degree with parasites and eggs.  Indoor only cats are not off the hook.  If you have dogs in the house this can impact the exposure of the indoor only cats to fleas and other parasites.  We can bring parasite eggs in on our shoes.  Potting soil and indoor plants can also be a source, as well as insects.

6.  Let Us Be Vampires – Annual labwork for pets over age 7 is recommended by all major veterinary organizations.  Pets make illness detection very hard.  They can’t tell us when something doesn’t feel well and are great at hiding it.  We can do so much more for them when we know there is a problem early.  Waiting until signs of illness develop misses a crucial window where we can do the most for your pet to turn things around.  It is also recommended to check labwork at least once while your pet is between 1 – 7 years of age to establish what a good baseline is of normal health for your pet.  In addition, if your pet is on chronic medication there can be side effects on various organ systems.  Annual labwork is highly recommended in these cases to make adjustments early if needed.

7. Last But Not Least – Have Some Fun! – Provide some enrichment for your pet.  If your four -legged friend likes new experiences travel and walk to different places.  If they are a home body rotate out their toys, provide a snuffle mat for exploration and searching out food, make perching places to allow watching the activities of the outdoors.  There are many low cost (and fancy not so low cost) ways to change up your pets’ environment and provide new scents, puzzles, toys, beds, and activities.  Keep their lives and yours interesting.  Visit The Indoor Pet Initiative at indoorpet.osu.edu for tips and tricks for both dogs and cats.

We are here to help you realize all of your pet parent goals and keep your furry family members healthy and happy.  We wish you all a happy and healthy New Year from our work family to yours.

To schedule your appointment, call us at (608) 249-3232 or book your appointment online. Still have questions? Contact us at (608) 249-3232 or use our online form to speak to a member of our medical team. 

Trisha Metzger, DVM and the Entire Stellar Team at Countryside Animal Clinic