Canine Wellness and Senior Screens

Routine blood work is an essential diagnostic tool that provides important information regarding your dog’s health.  Yearly blood work allows us to understand what your dog’s normal blood values are and to identify trends in their blood work from year to year.

What does this blood work include?

Wellness screen:  Dogs 1-7 years of age need a wellness screen yearly.  Our wellness screen is comprised of three tests: Complete Blood Count (CBC), minor chemistry panel, and urinalysis.

Senior screen:  All dogs 8 years of age and older need a senior screen at least once yearly.  Our senior screen is comprised of three tests:  Complete Blood Count (CBC), full chemistry panel, and urinalysis.

What does this blood work tell us?

Complete Blood Count (CBC):  A CBC is the measure of white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets.  This test helps us identify problems, such as infection, anemia, low platelet count, and bone marrow disease.

Chemistry panel:  The minor chemistry panel provides information on kidney and liver values, protein levels, and blood sugar.  The major chemistry panel also includes those values, with additional information regarding liver values, electrolytes, calcium, and phosphorus.

Urinalysis:  This test looks a urine concentration, which along with kidney values, helps fully assess your dog’s kidney function.  We also look for signs of urinary tract infection and abnormal protein in the urine.

4DX Snap® test
This is an important yearly screening test for Heartworm, Lyme, Anaplasma, and Ehrlichia infections. 

Heartworm Disease
Heartworm disease is caused by a parasite that is transmitted by mosquitoes.  The parasite lives in the bloodstream and when the worms become adults they travel to the right side of the heart.  This impairs blood circulation causing damage to the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys.  An infected dog can have up to 300 adult worms living in their heart.

We recommend testing your dog for heartworm disease once yearly.  Heartworm disease is completely preventable and we recommend keeping your dog on preventative May-December or all year round.

Lyme Disease
Lyme disease is caused by a spiral shaped bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi.  Lyme disease is transmitted by the Ixodes tick, more commonly known as the deer tick.

In dogs, 90% of animals exposed to the Lyme organism do no develop any signs of illness.  Clinical signs of Lyme disease include lameness, stiffness, swelling of the limbs or joints, fever, lethargy, reluctance to move, loss of appetite, vomiting, and depression.  Occasionally, dogs with Lyme disease can develop kidney damage, which can be life-threatening.

A 4DX Snap®, can determine if your dog has been exposed to the Lyme bacteria.  A positive test simply means your dog has been exposed and does not predict disease.  If the test is positive, a wellness screen is needed to determine how your dog is responding to the Lyme exposure.  Monitoring values such as blood counts, kidney values, and screening for protein in the urine are important for all Lyme positive dogs.

Anaplasmosis
Anaplasmosis is a disease caused by an organism similar to the Lyme bacteria and is transmitted by the deer tick.  It can occur on its own, or as a co-infection with Lyme disease.  The clinical signs are similar to Lyme disease and include swollen joints, fever, lethargy, vomiting and diarrhea.  As the disease progresses, there may be significant changes in the body, including low platelets and changes in the white blood cells. 

A 4DX Snap® test can determine if your dog has been exposed and a wellness screen is then needed to determine how your dog is responding to exposure to Anaplasma.

Ehrlichiosis
Ehrlichiosis is another tick-borne disease, but is not common in this area.  It is caused by organisms similar to those that cause Lyme disease and Anaplasmosis. The clinical signs include lethargy, fever, and swollen joints.  This can be a very chronic, slowly progressive disease.  Blood work may show anemia, low platelets, liver dysfunction, or abnormal protein levels. 

A 4DX Snap® test can determine if your dog has been exposed and a wellness screen is then needed to determine how your dog is responding to Ehrlichia exposure.