Got an Aging Pet? Schedule Routine Bloodwork to Catch Health Problems Early
Recently I changed vets. I was very glad to see that my new vet runs annual bloodwork tests on all dogs over a certain age. While my older furbabies came up clean on the tests, it does add some peace of mind to know that everything looks good.
Thanks very much to Nika and her furmom for sharing this informative piece with all of us. We’ll all be pulling for you, Nika!
I wanted to share this with you… hoping that maybe you can highlight to the animal loving folks out there about the importance of getting routine bloodwork on your pups as they get older. Nika is the perfect example of why. A bouncing happy 9 year old Husky that everyone thinks is a puppy based on how she acts… only her routine bloodwork gave us the clues needed to find out she had a mass growing on her liver.
We do routine bloodwork on all of our dogs. We started this when they turned 5 years of age. With four dogs we can’t necessarily afford 2x a year, but we get the bloodwork done on them yearly. This gives us and the vets some historical numbers. When Nika went in for her routine bloodwork this past May, to know her and watch her you would have no idea that her levels were going to come back with the elevated ALT and ALKP levels that they did. The vets even told us that without the history they might not have taken it as seriously. However, something had to be wrong since her numbers were always in a certain range. After a few tests, we ultimately had an ultrasound done. Turns out she has two masses on her liver. There is no way you would have known this. She has been active, eating, playing.. seems like nothing is wrong at all. However, the masses are there. Hopefully we have caught it in time. She will be undergoing surgery in the coming week, has started a special diet, and we are learning all we can. We are also going to be ordering this book.Nika is a fighter. She survived bloat a few years ago.. and we will get through this. Nika has always been a teacher as well. Pet owners need to know how important it is to get that bloodwork routinely so you have a baseline to work with.
Nika is keeping her dogster diary up to date with things we learn as we go. We also have some information about bloodwork here.
getting annual bloodwork is a good idea, but people need to learn what the values mean. most vets just look for “high” and “low’ notations from the lab, and few vets look at prior bloodwork results to see if there is a trend in any values increasing or decreasing. i designed a spreadsheet for my dogs values to see at a glance what is going on. its a lot of work but my dogs are worth it.
VERY VERY good point Donna! Actually we changed vet’s before this all happened partly because of that. And we also did start putting all of our dog’s bloodwork information into a spreadsheet as well so we could see and compare previous results. It is VERY important to watch those trends!
If anyone wants a copy of the spreadsheet… please feel free to email me and I will send you a copy of it for your to use as you wish!
We also get our dogs bloodwork every year, but now I want a spreadsheet to track the trends.
Great Idea! And good luck with Nika.
[...] Lizz – Jun 20, 07 Link Hound Trackback URL – Permalink The savvy people at Dogster’s blog know the importance of taking care of senior dogs. Getannual bloodwork done with wellness exams to stay in the know. [...]
I wish Nika all the best! And…I have to agree with the routine testing. Year’s ago that’s what caught my dog Lucy’s pancreatitis. Had we not done the bloodwork, it would have likely been too late for her.
Good luck to you and Nika! It sounds like she’s got a pretty good human to help her out!
(and what an expressive face she has!)