Senior Pet Care

Critical anaesthesias, dental care and senior pet wellness are our thing.  If your pet needs this kind of veterinary treatment, you know who to call.

Senior Wellness Checks

Is your dog or cat over 7 years of age?  Then this video could make a huge difference to their health.

It’s hard to believe my beautiful Shanti (our clinic mascot) is already classified as a senior pet! She still acts like a puppy most of the time – climbing up the ramps in the chicken coop to steal their eggs, wrestling her favourite furry friends (including our housecat Sapote – also a senior!), and tearing around the yard with her favourite toy – palm fronds.  

Please take 3 minutes to watch this video.  You will get a dog’s eye view of their vet clinic experience which is pretty cute.  But more importantly, we share what your vet’s role is at this stage of your pet’s life.  How regular wellness checks and early, proactive diagnostics and treatment will support your pet to experience the best possible quality of life well into their twilight years.

Critical Anaesthesias

Even the oldies sometimes need an anaesthetic, whether for routine procedures like dental cleans, diagnostic procedures like lump removals for analysis, for critical events, or to provide palliative care options.

We take great care to tailor an anaesthetic plan for your pet, guided by their age, past medical history, anxiety levels (yes this affects their anaesthetic and requires careful management!), red flags, previous noted reactions to any drugs or anaesthetic agents, and the procedure required.

Prior to any anaesthetic a blood test will be needed if not performed in recent months or if we have identified any red flags that require further work-up. Additional diagnostics are sometimes required to prepare for a surgery, for example a cardiac ultrasound, or chest radiographs.

The more care we take with the pre-anaesthetic work-up, the safer the procedure will be and we have an excellent track record of getting senior pets through necessary procedures safely. We have an excellent track record at The Natural Vets for getting critical patients through anaesthesia safely.

Acupuncture and Bodywork

Nurse Bec

Nurse Bec offers specialised treatments for the oldies in the form of acupuncture and bodywork. Nurse Bec is certified in both acupuncture and massage and has a special interest in essential oils and their benefits for pets. These kinds of treatments can support your ageing pet to feel more comfortable, have more ease in their movement, and be happier!

Palliative Care

At this stage of life, your pet may be facing a terminal diagnosis. When this occurs, the approach to their health care moves to one that supports quality of life and prolongs lifespan as best we can, as a cure may not be possible. Conventional medicine is often limited in its options for treatment at this stage of life, whereas with our toolkit, we can improve your pet’s state of health and happiness. Treatments like acupuncture, bodywork, massage, homeopathy, herbal medicines and dietary adjustments, alongside the best of Western medicine, provide your pet with solutions that serve them. Making timely decisions around end-of-life is another thing to consider at some stage in the palliative journey. This is never easy, and we are here to support you and your pet when the time arises.

Dentistry

One of our most touching patient stories was Taffy, a hero dental patient. Taffy the Pomeranian desperately needed a dental, at the age of 18, but she also had a heart issue. With an unusually slow heart rate and an audible murmur, Taffy’s heart needed to be strengthened before she could safely handle an anaesthetic. A cardiac work-up revealed she had stage 3 (out of 4) heart disease and was very high risk with regards to going under. But the state of her mouth was also a huge quality of life issue – she had teeth rotting her jaw bone, and the infection and pain was an immense burden on her little body. Thankfully, Taffy came to the right place! The primary goal of integrative medicine is to strengthen patients. We prescribed Chinese herbs and homeopathics for her heart as well as a pharmaceutical medication to reduce the load on the heart tissue and improve its function. After 5 months of treatment she was in the best state she could be to handle an anaesthetic and surgery. And so her VERY BRAVE Mum left her in our care and said a tearful good-bye with a heart full of hope that she would see Taffy alive and well again. Following a very diligent and careful anaesthetic protocol, Taffy survived, with 10 less teeth than she started. She was discharged 6 hours later, alive and pain-free. It is a rare client who will say YES to such a high-risk procedure. And a rare team who will say YES to doing it, with the confidence they can pull it off safely. In Taffy’s case the immense benefits to her quality of life post-procedure outweighed the risks. Thank you Taffy’s Mum for trusting us with your precious companion. Thank you Taffy, for your bravery, your will to live to tell the tale, and for the lessons you and your kind teach us every day.

Ask our chatbot Tristan to walk you through the booking process. If you have any questions, he can answer them for you too!

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