Prevention plan for your pet

The prevention plan should be tailored to the individual pet, based on the basic principles of animal health care. Here is a general prevention plan for your four-legged friends.

Examination by a doctor

Even healthy-looking pets should be examined by a veterinarian at least once a year, and twice for pets older than 7 years. During the clinical examination, the vet may detect changes that are difficult for the owner to spot.

Research

In order to diagnose organ dysfunction in the early stages, blood tests should be carried out annually and a urinalysis is recommended. However, not all diseases are associated with blood abnormalities (e.g. cardiac pathologies or neoplasms), so echoscopic or X-ray examinations can be helpful.

Antiparasitic measures

• Internal parasites (worms). We recommend prophylactic deworming every 3 months, but if the pet is younger than 6 months of age and likes to eat inedible things, it should be done more frequently, every 1-2 months.
• External parasites (fleas, ticks). We recommend that you protect yourself against insidious tick diseases all year round, except in very cold winters. There is a wide range of drops, tablets, collars and sprays on the market to suit everyone’s needs.

Vaccination

The first vaccine is given at two months of age and the second at three months. Revaccinations are given annually, but there are vaccines that last 2 or 3 years.

• Dogs are vaccinated against parvo, distemper, leptospirosis, rabies, parainfluenza, viral hepatitis, infectious tracheobronchitis (kennel cough)
• Cats are vaccinated against panleukopenia, herpes, calici viruses, rabies, leukaemia.

It should be noted that the animal must be de-helminticised 10 days before vaccination.

Home care

It is very important that your four-legged pet receives a balanced diet adapted to its species, age and state of health, sufficient water, adequate exercise, regular dental care and a healthy environment, free from stress, toxic plants or chemicals.

Reproductive control

We recommend that cats and kittens are neutered at 6 months of age.

For dogs, the timing of this operation depends on breed and size. We recommend that small and medium sized dogs are neutered between 6-9 months of age and large and giant dogs between 12-24 months of age.

Dogs, and especially cats, have an innate survival instinct that enables them to hide pain and disease well so as not to appear vulnerable to predators. Since a veterinarian cannot simply ask a pet how it feels or see what is going on in its body, a thorough examination, detailed tests and an accurate account from the owner can help the veterinarian to determine whether your four-legged pet is at risk of illness.