Keep Your Pet Healthy & Happy this Spring
With spring weather, everyone is excited to get outside with their pets for playtime but the warmer weather increases your pet’s risk of fleas, ticks, parasites and heartworms as well as getting lost.
Besides being an annoyance to you and your pet, fleas cause dermatitis, skin infections and anemia. Ticks can carry fatal diseases such as Lyme, so always check your pet before you bring them inside. Heartworm disease is prevalent in Alabama and passed around from mosquitos. Foot-long heartworms live in the heart, blood vessels and lungs of an infected pet and can be life-threatening. While treatment for fleas, ticks and heartworms is available, prevention is safer and more effective. Based on your lifestyle and budget, your veterinarian can help you decide which preventative is best for you. Options include oral or topical medication for fleas and ticks and oral, topical and injectable options for heartworms and parasites. Even indoor cats and dogs need to be protected.
Being outdoors and having doors and windows open can increase the chances of your pet escaping. Keep ID tags on pets with their name and your current phone number. Veterinarians can also administer a microchip that uses radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to store a number that is registered with pet information and owner contact details in national databases. Veterinarians or shelters that find a lost animal will use a scanner to read the microchip to identify the pet and owner.
Enjoy the springtime but take these few precautions to keep your family pet protected.
-Valleydale Animal Clinic & Nexgard
www.valleydaleanimalclinic.com
