As you know, an annual veterinary visit is extremely important to maintain your pet’s health and to detect hidden diseases in your pet. Our annual visit includes a physical examination, answering your questions, urinalysis, microscopic fecal examination, heart worm test (dogs,) blood titer testing (which replaces unnecessary vaccines,) and a blood profile to check for organ function as well as inflammatory markers and vitamin D levels. (The exact blood panel depends upon your pet’s age and health status.)
Equally important is a biannual examination done 6 months from the time of your pet’s most recent annual visit. This visit, is done for adult pets and is also important for early disease detection.
When you consider that pets age 5-7 years for every year of human life, seeing a pet only once a year does not make sense, will result in serious and potentially fatal diseases being missed, and constitutes malpractice.
We have had a number of pets come in every 6 months who have had serious diseases detected during their annual/biannual visit. We have also had owners who have declined biannual visits, only to have their pets die of a serious disease (often undetected cancer) before their pet’s next annual visit.
Please do not put off or underestimate the importance of your pet’s annual and/or biannual visit.