5 Topics Your Vet Wishes You Would Ask About
Our vet's do a lot for us automatically - prescribing necessary vaccinations and medications, evaluating our pet's weight and oral health, and giving general tips and advise for overall positive pet health. But there are certain topics that your vet would like the opportunity to give more information on, if we were to only ask. These aren't your average pet parent topics but things that should still be prioritized when considering your pet's conventional health. We've compiled a list of subjects that can be helpful to bring up with your vet. They'll thank you for it, trust us.
1. Daily Dental Care
It may feel like we do so much for our pets already but the one area we definitely can't fall off, is our pet's teeth and dental health. For both cat's and dog's alike, periodontal disease is one of the major causes of serious health concerns. Most pet parents image that trying to regularly brush your pet's teeth would be a nightmare but it doesn't have to be that way!
We recommend trying Waggles Pet Breath Spray, this makes it easy to simply apply to your pet's gum line or spray directly into their water bowl. Our naturally derived ingredients make it perfect for pets with sensitive stomachs or allergies. Waggles Pet Breath Spray reduces tartar and plaque, freshens breaths, improves gums, and what's best is there's no brushing involved! Now you can have the peace of mind of knowing your on top of your pet's preventative oral care and you can skip the messy brushing session.
Ensuring your pet has pet-safe toys and treats to chew on everyday is another helpful effort for keeping up with regular dental care. Ask your vet! They can tell you about the importance of dental care and give you the scary facts for if you aren't.
2. Preventing Obesity
Weight is never a comfortable subject, even when it's concerning your pet but it's a vital aspect of your pet's overall health, nonetheless. Being overweight can put your pet at risk for multiple health problems such as cardiovascular disease, hypothyroidism, diabetes, arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease. By keeping your pet a healthy wet reduces your pet's risk of acquiring health problems.
Ways that you can help maintain a healthy weight for your pet is by controlling their portion size during feeding times, and including daily physical activities which can serve not only as exercise but as a way for you and your pet to bond. By asking your vet about obesity within cats and dogs, they can provide you with helpful tips and info about how your pet's system works to burn fat, what exercise is best for your pet, and lay out feeding guidelines and food types for your pet to try as well.
3. What Food Is Best Is For Your Pet
This is probably the number one question constantly facing pet owners, and yet so many of us doing think to ask our pets more information about creating your pets diet. Your vet has learned every stage of development for animals, so I think they know a thing or two about what kind of food is best for your pet, at what time. Of course there are some general food facts that vets are governed by too.
For pet's, you can be sure that highly processed, grain and meal by-product heavy foods are not good for them. Low quality Gastrointestinal, skin, immune system and metabolic diseases and abnormalities, including cancer, can be correlated to these unnecessary food ingredients. We understand the convenience of dried kibble but there are other alternatives that are just easy but boast actual nutritional value and won't jeopardize the health of your fur babies.
What is recommended is a pet food made with human-grade, whole-food ingredients that undergo minimal processing. You can transition your pet to this diet by beginning to blend it in with their regular food, with small portions at first until they fully transition to the new food. This can take between 7 - 11 days normally. Here at Waggles, we suggest SMACK Raw Dehydrated Pet Food. It offers the convenience of kibble with all of the necessary nutrients your pet needs, without any of the filler, processing, or additives!
4. Holistic Health Care
You may associate going to the vet with high medical bills or medication prices but if you were to ask your vet, they would likely recommend a number of at-home, holistic and natural treatments to help your pet. Don't get me wrong - if your pet is dealing with a serious health issue, it's likely that the medical veterinary option will be best. Nonetheless, your vet can recommend alternatives so your pet's don't become reliant on medication or have to suffer uncomfortable side-effects.
Ways to minimize your pet's med intake, your vet might recommend a few of the following.
- Pet-proof your home, make it as pet-safe as possible.
- Introduce probiotics and nutraceuticals to your pet's diet. This includes omega fatty acids, joint support products, antioxidants, etc.
- Maintaining a lean body score with a healthy diet and exercise.
- Providing human-grade, whole-food based diets rich in non-processed nutrients
- Pursuing physical rehabilitation, such as massage, stretching, and range of motion, and acupuncture treatments.
5. Why & When To Vaccinate
When our pet's are puppies and kittens, they have a line-up of medicines and vaccinations that they have to receive automatically but it's our job as parents to keep up with any other vaccinations that they may require or that become available to them. It's also wise to know what your pet's vaccinations do, and why you don't want to over vaccinate your pet or vaccinate them when they're unhealthy. Vaccinating a pet when they're unhealthy can pose huge health risks to them. Even a single vaccine can elicit an allergic reaction, immune system diseases, inflammatory response, organ system failure, seizure activity, coma and death.
By asking your vet what exactly the function of each of your pet's vaccinations is, they will likely give an outpouring of information about how best to vaccinate and treat your pet.
In Conclusion
Vet's aren't scary people, even if our pet's act like they are. They're here to help us, and even more important, they're here to help our pets. By consulting more openly with your veterinarian about any and all topics that may come to mind, you're only benefiting yourself and your pet. By knowing more about the ins and outs of your pet's overall health, you can actually avoid more vet trips in the future. Spending time to talk about important health topics with your vet serves you and your pet for a long time.
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