We prefer to practice preventive medicine, by offering a range of care packages and services aimed at all ages of your pet, we partner with you to encourage thoughtful participation in keeping your pet healthy throughout its life.

Puppy / Kitten Packages
These packages provide:

• Vaccinations suitable for the lifestyle of your pet, appropriately spaced.
• Consultations for 6 months to provide you with continued professional advice about your new family member.
• Treatment and education about parasites, external and internal, that your pet will be exposed to all its’ life.
• Micro chipping, a better way to provide lifetime identification.
• Spay / Neuter services; every animal should be wanted, and a fixed pet stays healthier.
• For budgeting purposes we offer two different forms of our puppy / kitten packages. basic and premium, ask about the difference and choose the one right for you.

Wellness Plans (for adult pets)
We recommend yearly check ups for pets 1 – 6 years of age. During the middle years of your pet, we will continue to monitor its health and address the continued issues that might effect it.

• Update vaccines and keep you informed about possible new health risks in our area.
• Provide testing, advice and convenient treatment for common parasites.
• Dental exam; pets can get dental disease that can have serious and far reaching effects on their entire health. We will grade your pets oral health with a 1-4 dental disease score during their annual check up.
• Comprehensive physical
• Body scoring; obesity is a common problem, keeping track of your pets weight gain or lost is a good way to keep your pets health on track.

Senior Pet Recommendations (for pets 7 years or older)

• Our pets age faster than we do, most animals are entering their senior years by age 7 and will require more check ups and closer observation to help maintain their good health. We recommend:
• Twice yearly exams
• Yearly blood work and urine analysis, the early stages of many diseases can be picked up using good lab work. Early detection equals less drastic and costly treatment for many problems brought on by old age.
• X rays, these are used to scan and monitor diseases of the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, intestines and bones.
• Blood pressure testing; older pets can become hypertensive if suffering from thyroid or kidney diseases.
• Glaucoma. Increases in eye pressure can cause pain and lead to blindness if not detected and treated.

External and internal parasites are common hazards for dogs and cats. Having your pet tested regularly for internal parasites and keeping your pet on a year round preventive flea program will go a long way to keeping this u2018hazard’ under control.

We want to protect you and your pet from internal and external parasites and the discomfort and illnesses that they can cause.

External Parasites
Fleas and ticks are the two most common external parasites that pet owners need to be concerned about.

Fleas are not only a physical nuisance they can cause anemia, skin reactions (allergies) and carry infections, such as cat scratch fever (Bartonella). They can also serve as a tapeworm host.

Adult fleas account for only 5% of the flea population, the other 95%, in the form of eggs, larvae and pupae, can survive for months in the surrounding environment. This means that keeping fleas off your pet will be a never ending process.

Ideally, you’d use a product that would kill adult fleas as well as all forms of their offspring, unfortunately there is no one chemical that kills all flea forms.

We recommend placing your pet on a yearly preventive flea program; By treating year round we kill adult fleas before they have time to reproduce and ultimately reduce the flea population in your home.

Internal Parasites
There are many types of internal parasites that can commonly infest your pet, and even you. Worms such as roundworms, hookworms and whip worms can be passed from pet to pet and to humans through chance ingestion of contaminated soil or plant life. These worms shed their eggs in your pets stool and contaminate the environment .

Tapeworms, another internal parasite, requires an intermediate host. Fleas are a common host but mice, rats and rabbits can also serve.

Heartworms are not as prevalent in our area of the United States, but are gradually making their way from the south and east. Pets moving from these areas should be tested and monitored, and clients moving into these area need to be counseled on how to protect their pets.

Health tips to protect you and your family from internal parasitic infections

• Wash your hands well after contact with an animal
• Do not allow children to put soil in their mouths
• Wash all fruits and vegetables thoroughly
• Pick up dog and cat waste from your yard daily, especially in areas where both pets and people play
• Cover home sandboxes to protect them from fecal contamination
• Have your pet tested regularly for parasites by a veterinarian and administer year round preventive medications to control zoonotic parasites.

One of the simplest and least expensive ways of ensuring your pet is healthy and stays that way is through appropriate vaccinations, at proper times, specialized to the lifestyle of your pet.

Vaccinations are an important part of your pets’ complete health care, beginning when they’re only 6 to 8 weeks of age and continuing throughout their entire lives vaccines are an easy and inexpensive way to protect your pet from the most common but serious illnesses your pet can catch.

Vaccines help to stimulate the bodies’ defenses to develop immunity to certain diseases. Keeping pets vaccinated helps keep pets healthy in two ways:

It helps protect the individual pet vaccinated, and

It helps to keep the overall incidence of disease down

Canine Vaccines

Vaccinations are started from 6 to 8 weeks of age. We recommend the following canine vaccines;

DHLPP which basically stands for:

Distemper
Hepatitis
Leptospirosis
Parainfluenza
Parvo virus

RABIES

KENNEL COUGH (for dogs that go to groomers, kennels or board)

Puppies are generally given a series of vaccines beginning at 8 weeks of age and added to every 3 to 4 weeks. The first two series of vaccines will be DHPP only, followed by a DHLPP and RABIES, and finally a last round of DHLPP. This vaccination range may vary according to the age at which the puppy begins their vaccine program.

Once the puppy vaccine series is complete they’re good for one year. When you bring your pet in for its’ annual physical & dental exam the following year they will receive boosters good for a three year period. Except for the Leptospirosis vaccine which needs to be boosted yearly.

Not all veterinarian clinics vaccinate for Leptospirosis, but the Washington State Veterinarian Association recommends this vaccine sinceLeptospirosis is currently on the increase in the state and can be transmitted to humans.

Feline Vaccine Protocol

We recommend the following cat vaccines;

FVRCP which stands for:

Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis
Calici
Panleukopenia
FeLV ( leukemia ) for outside cats or cats that come into contact with outside cats.
RABIES

Kittens are given a series of vaccines beginning at about 8 weeks of age. The first two rounds of vaccine are FVRCP, followed by FVRCP and RABIES. If they are outdoor cats or exposed to outdoor cats an additional vaccine for FeLV will be given usually during their second or third visit.

Once the vaccine series is complete they’re good for one year. When they return the following year for their annual physical & dental check up they will receive boosters good for three years, except for FeLV which needs to be boosted annually.

In a recently published national study, almost three out of four cases of animals implanted with micro chips were reunited with their owners. Researchers found that return to owner rate for cats was 20 times higher and for dogs 2 u00bd times higher for micro chipped pets than were the rates of return for all stray cats and dogs that had entered shelters.*

*Ohio State University (2009, October 14) Microchips Result in Higher Rate of Return of Shelter Animals to Owners. ScienceDaily. Retreived 02/22/2011 from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091013185154.htm

A microchip is a passive radio circuit about the size of a grain of rice. This u2018chip’ is implanted into your pet with an injection – much like a vaccine shot. Each micro chip contains a simple code number that can be read by a hand held scanner. When you have your pet micro chipped the u2018unique’ number on its’ chip will be registered into an online database, along with it’s owner information; things like name, address, and phone number; contact information that will help reunite you with your pet. This information is kept online where shelters and vet clinics can access it at all times.

Most veterinarian clinics and animal shelters routinely scan lost pets for microchips.

Skagit Animal Clinic uses the resQ pet identification system by Bayer, this is a ISO (International Standard Organization) supported microchip recommended by the AAHA, AVMA, and the ASPCA. These chips are compatible with universal scanners so they can be read all over the world. ResQ chips are easily registered on the web site, www.Petlink.net. If you want, we can help you register your pet, though we encourage you to become familiar with the Petlink site since it should be updated with any changes to your residence or contact information. A microchip is only as good as its’ contact information.

SAC currently has a universal scanner and an older AVID scanner, since older microchips may not always scan.