At Aggie Animal Clinic, we offer a variety of services to care for your pet.
Exams and Consultations
We recommend exams whenever your pet is sick, as well as annually to get a baseline physical and discuss preventative care. Office visits start with a staff member getting a detailed history about your pet’s past and current medical issues, lifestyle, diet, and any concerns you may have. Then, one of our doctors will perform a thorough physical exam, checking all of the major body systems for any problems or abnormalities. If needed, a plan will be made for diagnostic tests, and medications or other treatments. Preventative care is a very important topic, as we would like to be proactive about keeping our patients healthy whenever possible. Some potential areas of concern they might discuss include weight management, dental health, diet, vaccinations, and parasite prevention.
Nutritional Counseling
Pets’ nutritional needs change as they enter different stages of their lives. We can give you advice about what types of foods are appropriate for your pet’s age, lifestyle or activity level, and any medical conditions they may have.
Obesity is a common problem among pets, as it can be easy to over-feed a pet that knows how to beg! But, being overweight is a serious problem for animals, and can cause real health problems as they get older. If your pet is overweight or obese, we can give you advice on diet type and amount, as well as feeding strategies to help overcome some of the challenges of feeding pets different diets or controlled amounts of food. Keeping a pet a lean, healthy weight is important for prevention and management of arthritis, diabetes, heart and respiratory problems, and much more.
We carry a variety of Hill’s and Royal Canin prescription veterinary diets, which are used for the management of certain medical conditions. We can also order specific diets if we don’t regularly stock the one your pet needs, and we can write a prescription for a veterinary diet if it is more convenient for you to obtain the food elsewhere.
Surgery
We know that anesthetic procedures are a source of anxiety for many pet owners, and we strive to make our procedures run as smoothly and safely as possible. While a pet is under anesthesia, we use multiple types of monitoring equipment and have a technician dedicated to tracking the patient’s vital signs so any problems can be identified and corrected quickly. Our veterinarians are skilled in many types of surgical procedures, including spay and neuter surgeries, removal of skin and soft tissue tumors, abdominal surgeries such as bladder and gastrointestinal surgery, and less common procedures such as removal of a diseased eye or amputation of a limb. We use multiple types of pain medication to keep our patients as comfortable as possible. For more specialized procedures, particularly orthopedic surgeries, we can have a surgical specialist come to our hospital to perform the procedure. Most of our surgical procedures are done on an out-patient basis, meaning the pet can go home the same day.
Dentistry
Dental care for our pets is just as important as it is for us! We can give you advice on preventative care you can perform at home, and for pets with minimal dental disease, we have a technician come in once per month to perform dental cleanings in awake patients.
For many of our patients, though, by the time we identify outward signs of dental disease, they already have periodontitis. This means they have disease affecting the roots of their teeth, and this can only be accurately diagnosed and treated under anesthesia. General anesthesia allows us to clean more thoroughly, including below the gumline. It also allows us to use dental radiographs (x-rays) to evaluate the health of the tooth roots and surrounding tissues, and to carefully probe and examine each tooth to check for fractures, pocketing, and root exposure. Using all of this information, we can make decisions about whether or not teeth should be extracted to help us attain the goal of a healthy mouth, free of pain and infection.
Vaccinations
Vaccines are the cornerstone of preventative care in our patients. Deadly diseases like parvovirus and feline leukemia virus used to be much more common, and we can keep them from being a threat to our patients by using proper vaccination protocols. Other diseases, like rabies, are a public health threat, and vaccinating our pets is an important part of keeping the community safe. Some vaccines are “core” vaccines, meaning we recommend them for everyone, and others are “lifestyle” vaccines, meaning your pet may not need them if they are not at a high risk of exposure to that disease. During your visit we can discuss which vaccines we recommend for your pet, and advise you on an effective vaccination schedule.
Microchipping
If your cat or dog is lost, and they are found without identifying tags, a microchip is the only way to track them back to you. A microchip is about the size of a grain of rice, and is implanted under the skin with a quick injection. We then give you the microchip number, which can be registered to you. The microchip company keeps the number on file, along with your name and contact information, and if the pet is ever brought into a shelter or veterinary clinic, they can be scanned and the number traced back to you. We recommend microchips for all pets, even those who are primarily indoors, because it only takes a second for a pet to escape or get lost. We frequently have Good Samaritans bring in pets they have found so that we can scan them for a microchip, and we are always very happy when we can use that to help them be reunited with their owner.
Diagnostics
Our hospital offers a wide range of diagnostic tools to help us provide a high level of medical care. As doctors, we always want more information about what is going on with our patients, especially when they can’t talk to us! We have the ability to run basic blood tests in-house, giving us same-day answers, or we can send samples to a reference laboratory when needed. We can use a microscope to look at skin, ear, and tumor aspirate samples in-house, and we can send biopsies to a local pathology service. When we need to look inside the patient, we use our radiograph (x-ray) equipment and our ultrasound machine. Other miscellaneous diagnostic tools include tonometry (measuring the pressure in the eye), ECG (diagnosing abnormal heart rhythms), and quick diagnostic tests for heartworm, Feline Leukemia Virus and FIV, and some of the diseases carried by ticks.
Pharmacy
We offer a fully stocked pharmacy to fill your pet’s prescription needs. Having an on-site pharmacy provides you with a more convenient way to get your pet’s medication. We hope that this will save you time and ultimately enhance your experience with us. We also have the ability to order some medications that we may not stock regularly, and we can call in prescriptions to local pharmacies. For medications that need to be compounded into a specific formulation or flavor, we use a specialized compounding pharmacy to have the medication made specifically for your pet.
Integrative Medicine
While we do not offer alternative treatment modalities, such as acupuncture, laser therapy, and medicinal herbs, we are happy to refer you and your pet to a local veterinarian for these services if desired. Dr. Yamate at the Center for Integrative Animal Medicine in Davis can work with your primary care veterinarian at Aggie to make sure all aspects of your pet’s care are being addressed and considered.
Please contact us today if you have any questions about the services we offer or would like to learn more about how we care for your pet.