Care Tips from Mobile Pet Medical Care

Healthy Pets Healthy People:

You might have heard that owning a pet can make you more healthy, both physically and emotionally. This is true, but it does take more than just owning the pet to get these great benefits. We, as pet owners, know that when we come home after a stressful day at the office and can cuddle up on the couch with our pets, we almost instantly feel the stress of the day go away. Playing catch with our dog in the back yard can help us decrease our stress as well, to forget the challenges of the day and just relax. There are also subtle things that we might not notice that we benefit from having our pets. One thing is a reason to get up in the morning. Sometimes our pets don't want to let us sleep in, which you could think of as a stress builder, but really they are helping us by getting us up and going. Individuals who retire and are not involved in much outside of their homes, on average, tend to be sicker and have a decreased life expectancy. Pets give us purpose when we might not have any other direct responsibility in our lives. Pets can also motivate us. When left to our own motivations, we may never go for a daily walk or jog without a friend to do it with. Our pets can be that friend and can really even be better motivation because we feel obligated for our pet's health to go on the walk when our priorities might have us change the running appointment with our other friends. Pets have also been linked to decreasing their owners blood pressure and helping to calm our moods. In the medical field, therapy animals are used to make hospital visits and it has been shown that people who have visits from pets tend to stay less time in the hospital than those without visits.

As we can see, there are many advantages to having pets in our lives. Many of us have already experienced these things knowingly or unknowingly. There are reasons we have to love our pets. Most of those reasons don't have to do with the physical and emotional health benefits. The other side of the equation is your pet's health and happiness. How do we measure this? It can be hard. Do you measure your cat's happiness by how much they sleep or stare at birds in the window? Do you measure your dog's contentment by how well he plays fetch or catches a Frisbee? Many times we don't think of our pet's health status until they are showing us that they are sick. This can make it hard if we do not see the subtle change over time because we are not watching out for the signs. If we think about it, the things that better our health by having a pet, help us when our pets are their healthiest as well. At least a yearly check-up with a Veterinarian will help, but as our pets get older, it is better to have a visit done every 6 months. Think of it this way, if one year to you is seven to your pets, a once a year visit to the veterinarian is like you only seeing a doctor once every seven years. Imagine what your teeth would look like if you only went to the dentist once every seven years. As our pets age, just like when we age, a doctors check-up is vital to discovering diseases early and trying to prevent sicknesses from happening.

When our pets are Healthy, they are Happy, which makes us Happy and Healthier too. Back to top

Introducing a new pet into the family:

It can be hard trying to think of adding another pet into the house hold, especially if the animal is a different species from the pet you already have. Here are some things to think about when you are making the decision to add to the family.

First of all is there space? Do you have the space that will be necessary for the addition of the new pet? Do you want a large breed dog and you live in a small urban apartment or do you live in a smaller house, but want to add one more cat into your household of cats? There are some tricks you can do to increase your small spaces that could help. If you want a larger dog, but live in a small apartment, you should realize that a regular daily walk and trip to a park should be part of the new schedule. This will help your large dog be active and use that built up energy from being in a small space the rest of the day. You might even need to plan a walk in the morning and the evening depending on the activity level of your dog. Another option would be Doggy day care to help keep your dog active during the day. With the introduction of more cats into small spaces, one quick fix is creating more vertical space through cat walks and cat trees throughout the house. You will have to plan on at least one more litter box and potentially having the litter boxes located in different locations. As long as there is plenty of space to call their own, most cats can get along just fine even in small places.

Second, is your pet already used to the new species of pet? Your dog or cat may have been exposed to other cats and dogs. You should have a good idea of how they react around others before introducing another pet into your home. Sometimes in this case a slow introduction will help. Maybe, having the two meet in neutral territory at a park or somewhere else to see how they respond to each other in the case of a dog would be helpful. Also setting up with the shelter or breeder a meet and greet with the members of your family including the family pet or pets is a good idea. Cats can be trickier, but just be careful when and where you introduce a new animal. Try not to do it around your pets’ favorite locations or where you also feed your pet. This could cause some unwanted aggression between the two before they even have a chance to get to know each other.

These are a few things you can think about as you decide to add to your pet family. Don’t forget even if your new pet is going to be in a cage or aquarium the other pets in the home will have to adapt to the changes in routine and the new environment as much as you will, so think of them as well. Back to top

Look here next week for more pet care tips or submit a pet care question to drsormond@gmail.com