Happy Monday! We have unfortunately been experiencing intermittent phone and internet outages. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding.
Thank you!
The Team at Allen Animal Hospital.
We love our amazing and compassionate Techs. They are dedicated to giving every pet the best care possible and work harder than you could imagine to do that. Please help celebrate National Vet Tech week with Allen Animal Hospital!
What's less fun (and more fatal) than a Monday? HEARTWORM DISEASE. 💔〰️
Here are some important facts about heartworm disease, prevention, and testing.
❤ Heartworm disease affects over 1,000,000 pets each year in the U.S. It can absolutely be DEADLY.
❤ Luckily, heartworm disease is PREVENTABLE by giving a tasty chewable or topical medication such as Heartgard, Sentinel, Simparica Trio, Revolution, or Interceptor once each month.
❤ DON'T THINK PREVENTION IS NECESSARY FOR YOUR PET OR YOUR SITUATION? THINK AGAIN. Heartworm disease is caused by worms that are transmitted through MOSQUITO BITES (which, as we all know, enter our houses).
❤ Prevention medication costs less than the INTENSIVE AND EXPENSIVE treatment required to attempt to save your pet's life if they do contract heartworms.
❤ Heartworm disease generally takes about 6 months from initial exposure to be detectable. For this reason, a heartworm test (using a blood sample) should be done EVERY YEAR for dogs, and when symptoms are present for cats.
We will continue to post information about the dangers, prevention options, and signs of heartworms, as well as fleas and ticks, throughout the coming months.
Fellow humans, it is TICK SEASON! These little buggers may be small (even as small as a pin head), but they can have a grave impact on you and your family… four-legged and two-legged members alike!
Ticks primarily reside in wooded or grassy areas--similar to a lot of our backyards in Michigan--while waiting for a suitable host to walk by and stealthily crawl on.
Some of the diseases spread to humans and dogs by ticks in the Midwest include lyme disease, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, tularemia, powassan disease, ehrlichiosis, and many others. Symptoms like fever, headache, vomiting, heart palpitations, and muscle stiffness/aches often accompany these diseases in humans. In some people, severe reactions can include recurring headaches, loss of muscle mass, memory problems, arthritis, respiratory failure, organ failure, blood clots, and even death. Our furry friends also experience similar symptoms, so it’s crucial they receive medical attention right away!
The best way to prevent ticks is year-round prevention. This includes oral medications such as NexGard or topical medications like Frontline, both of which can be prescribed by your veterinarian and picked up at the Allen Animal Hospital year-round.
These ticks were recently removed from a patient at our clinic--they’re not the first and they most certainly won’t be the last we will see this year! If you notice a tick on your pet, contact us right away at 248-476-0570 so that it can be removed in its entirety and the tick can be sent to a lab to test for any diseases it may be carrying!!
Learn more here: https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/diseases/index.html