Nothing is guaranteed when it comes to health, but many of the risks for medical issues and medical costs seen in veterinary medicine can be managed ahead of time. Below is an ever-growing list of inflation-resistant things I say daily to clients. Hopefully, reading about some common issues before they arise helps decrease your life time vet care expenses.
General Tips
Routine checks ups with an expert like a veterinarian are better than waiting for a medical problem to become obvious. Often, there are better health outcomes with lower expense when disease are addressed earlier. Also, veterinarians cannot legally prescribe medications without having performed a physical exam on an animal within 12 months. Having that physical exam potentially allows for cheaper resolutions to chronic issues, such as via a telehealth appointment or by ordering medication online.
Pet insurance companies are profitable when they take in more money than they pay out. Therefore, most people pay companies more money than they receive back in coverage. Notice, this is the same business model as a casino. For most people, pet insurance is a bad deal. If pet insurance becomes as complicated as it is in human medicine, and clinics have to hire administrative staff solely to deal with insurance claims, prices for care will even increase further. Not a fan.
Especially in your first year of owning a new animal, get to know them. Do certain foods give them diarrhea? Did they have bad skin allergies in the spring? Are they prone to eat trash or run off into the street? We can predict some medical issues based on past experiences and try to avoid them, or treat them more cheaply, in the future.
Take care of your animal’s teeth. Pulling rotten teeth is the main source of surgical income for many veterinary practices today, a spot once held by spaying and neutering. Brushing once daily is ideal. If that cannot be done, look at which products have some positive effect published by the Veterinary Oral Health Council.
Do not let your pet get fat. Look here for images of what ideal weight should look like. Besides saving money in food costs, excessive calorie intake is associated with many medical conditions, including diabetes, cancer, increased arthritis pain, and failure to be immunized by vaccines.
What the “right” food to feed an animal is a heated topic. Honestly, correctly home cooking a balanced and complete meal for an animal’s purpose is probably ideal health-wise. If you wish to do that, I recommend starting your research with the tools at Ohio State and BalanceIT. You would benefit from contacting a board certified veterinary nutritionist. But there are many reasons other than health for choosing a diet: cost, convenience, the belief that some company which employs board certified veterinary nutritionists would create a better diet than you, or the belief that your pet shouldn’t be eating more healthily than the average American. I am no pet diet snob. I feed my own dog dry Pedigree supplemented with Omega 3 fish oil and whatever scraps my toddler doesn’t eat or throws on the floor.
There is no such thing as a “prescription” diet. Some drugs need prescriptions as required by the FDA. No food, so long as there are not drugs in it, requires a prescription. Why can you buy hydrolyzed baby formula, but you need a vet to sign for you to buy hydrolyzed pet food? Anyway…some veterinarian-exclusive products are worth it, and sometimes something you can make or buy off the shelf is better and more inexpensive for your pet’s condition. We would have to establish a relationship and have me examine your pet to plan a best course forward.
Spend time training your pets. Animals are euthanized or abandoned to shelter for medical reasons, but also behavioral reasons. Additionally, a stressed or fearful pet does not give a veterinarian a good physical exam because they hide pain or don’t allow you to examine every body part as thoroughly as should be examined.
Most lab tests (bloodwork, urinalysis, fecal analysis, etc) in young animals without symptoms are usually normal with no significant findings. I do not over-test. See specific sections on cats and dogs for when you might want to seek testing.
Animals often make lumps and bumps on or under their skin, sometimes dozens on one animal. Most are benign (not cancerous). To know if something is cancerous, we have to take a biopsy of it and send it to a lab to have it examined. My general advice, in order to save money and not test every bump, is to watch them over time and address that ones that grow rapidly (double in a week/month), bleed, change color, are painful, or otherwise are causing problems or acting “weird”.
Most (>90%) bouts of vomiting or diarrhea are short and self-limiting, meaning they last up to 5-7 days and go away no matter what you do. If vomiting, withhold food for 24 hours. When feeding, you can try probiotics, a low-fat, easy to digest diet like boiled chicken and rice, Hills’ i/d low fat, Royal Canin GI low fat, and, if there is frequent, watery diarrhea you can add a small amount of plain psyllium fiber (1/2 tsp to 2 Tbsp, depending on size of your pet) which will absorb some of the extra water and hopefully help you sleep through the night. Watch for signs of dehydration like decreased energy, dry gums, or skin which stays tented when you pinch it, and seek veterinary care if that is occurring. Most episodes do not require antibiotics like metronidazole to resolve. Vomit or diarrhea lasting longer than a week should definitely be looked at.
Save money by letting me see multiple of your pets at a time, or else by booking back-to-back appointments with a neighbor. Cost savings in efficiency get passed on to you!
Cats
Like more exotic pets, a lot of “medical” issues with cats are husbandry issues or misunderstood expectations of normal cat behavior. Please read through Ohio State’s indoor cat website.
The average cat should be under 10lbs and eat around 200 calories daily (normal range of 150-250, depending on activity level).
Most pet cats are spayed or neutered (their behaviors are often intolerable if they are not) and live indoors with with low activity, so they are prone to obesity. Fat cats in particular are susceptible to diabetes and arthritis pain, and if stressed more prone to hepatic lipidosis and feline idiopathic cystitis, both of which can be immediately life threatening and run up multiple thousands of dollars in vet bills.
My favorite food for a healthy cat is one that is canned and with minimal (<7%) carbohydrates. Check out this chart here for your favorite brand. With certain diseases (kidney disease is a common one in cats >12 years of age), this advice will change. Canned foods help a cat stay more hydrated and are less calorie dense. Almost all constipated cats are ones eating dry food. Will your cat not touch canned food? Read here.
Outdoor cats have a different group of diseases than indoor cats. They are less likely to be obese or be anxious, but more likely to be infested by parasites, bitten, hit by a car, or infected by feline retroviruses. These risks can be mitigated somewhat, but outdoor cats do live significantly shorter lives. Spay or neuter your cat to reduce fighting, and if there are any feral cats around your neighborhood, help catch them and bring them to a shelter to be spayed or neutered as well.
Most indoor cats do not suffer with parasites.
Seek lab work for your cat if they are losing weight (especially with a good appetite) or drinking/urinating more, especially if the cat is older than 8 years old. There are other reasons to do lab work, but these are true for all cats.
Dogs
All dogs should, at a minimum, be on heartworm prevention after testing negative for an active heartworm infection. Heartworm is spread by mosquitoes. Prevention is much cheaper and comes with fewer side effects than treatment. I recommend either Simparica Trio (external parasites/heartworm/intestinal parasites), or TriHeart Plus (heartworm/intestinal parasites) for most dogs.
Vaccinate your dog based on risk to try to avoid preventable disease.
Ear infections are almost always caused by allergies, not the groomer and not swimming. Let’s stop treating constant ear infections and treat the allergies instead.
Certain dog breeds are prone to certain diseases. Have some idea of what these are and what to look for at home so we can catch them early.
Other Animals
Most “medical” issues are really husbandry issues: not providing the right food, housing, environment, heat, etc for the species. Find a reputable book on raising the animal and most problems will resolve themselves. A true medical issue in exotic animals often requires blood work and x-rays, which cannot be done in your house; contact me if you need some help triaging where to go.