General Health Care Vet Consultation
At Matraville Veterinary Practice we love seeing our patients (and their owners!) for consultations.
Regular vet consultations ensure your pet lives a happy, healthy and long life. We can detect and diagnose early any signs of injury or disease and treat them accordingly. We can check for any conditions that are common to your pet’s breed or related to their age and take preventive measure to ensure that they don’t suffer from them later in life.
Each consultation gives the veterinarian a chance to perform a thorough physical examination of your furry friend including examination of eyes, ears, mouth, teeth, skin, coat, auscultation of chest, palpation of abdomen and temperature check.
As our pets can’t tell us if they are feeling unwell this is an important opportunity for our veterinarians to detect any abnormalities and start early treatment where possible.
Our vets and nursing staff can also give valuable advice on feeding your pet, behaviour, parasite control and any other concerns you may have.
We recommend an annual health check for adult dogs and cats from 1-7 years of age, this can be done at the same time as their annual vaccination. Cats and dogs that are older than 7 years of age are considered to be geriatric or elderly and for these patients we recommend a 6 monthly health check as it is more common that they will develop age related diseases such as arthritis, organ dysfunction and growth of masses (just like humans!). Young puppies and kittens will require more frequent health checks in line with their vaccinations.
Of course we are also happy to see your furry friend at any time if you have any concerns at all. In our opinion, no problem is too small and we would always rather see a patient early when treatment is more likely to be successful than wait until the issue is serious.
Common reasons that we see animals for consultations other than their routine health checks are ear infections, allergic skin disease, lameness, vomiting, diarrhoea and general lethargy just to name a few.