What is the "Seniors Clinic"? The seniors clinic includes a full veterinary examination of your pet, plus some routine blood and urine tests, designed to check the health of your pet. By doing blood and urine tests we can look for signs of certain diseases commonly seen in older pets – for example, to do with the kidneys, liver, immune system, but also many other areas of the body. If necessary then your vet can investigate any abnormalities further.
Why? By having a vet examine your pet, they can look for signs of certain diseases which may affect your pets quality of life, such as arthritis, and then help you manage them. Even if your pet appears to be healthy on the outside, we may be able to detect the early stages of certain diseases, before they start to show signs. Earlier detection gives us more time and opportunities to help treat and manage these conditions. Also, we then have a "baseline" of what is normal for your pet – this can be useful if your pet should become ill later on in life.
Common problems with older pets: Arthritis: Many older pets suffer from arthritis just like older humans do. The joints start to wear down, and inflammation occurs, leading to pain and reduced mobility in the joint. You may notice that your pet starts to slow down, is more reluctant to get up after lying down for a while, and may be sore the day after doing lots of running and playing.
Heart disease - Heart disease means that there is some sort of abnormality with you pets heart. Your vet may notice an abnormal noise when listening to your pets heart, or maybe notice something when your dog has an x-ray. Other times the first clue is much later on. In some cases, particularly as your pet ages, it can develop into heart failure, where the heart cannot pump blood around the body properly anymore – for a short time the body can compensate for this, but after a time it becomes so severe that help is needed.
Eyesight loss and deafness - there is a natural decline in hearing and vision as your pet ages, but sometimes there can be something more serious going on, which may potentially be treatable. It is always worth having it checked out before assuming anything, particularly if it seems to happen quite quickly.
Weight gain - unfortunately as some pets get older, they seem to gain weight too! This may in part be due to the natural decline in activity as they age – pet owners need to remember this when they decide how much food their pet needs. Obesity contributes to a lot of other age-related diseases – the excess weight can make heart problems, arthritis and some breathing problems much worse. It is amazing the amount of difference a little weight loss can make to a pets life.