Comprehensive Physical Exams
When your pet is booked in for their annual exam you can be sure that our veterinarians will complete a thorough physical exam from head to toe.
This includes:
- Listening to the heart to assess rate, rhythm and to check for murmurs
- Listening to the chest to assess lung clarity and respiratory rate
- Checking the temperature.
- Assessing body condition score and a weight check.
- Checking the eyes, ears, teeth, mucous membrane color and capillary refill time, skin and hair coat, palpating the abdomen for any abnormalities, and assessing the joints for signs of discomfort or abnormalities.
- Nail trim or anal gland expression as needed.
In addition to these parts of the exam, if there is anything in particular you have concerns about with your pet, our veterinarians are always happy to assess those concerns and discuss them with you.
Puppy and Kitten Exams
Regular exams for puppies and kittens are important for preventative care, picking up on any concerns early and building a relationship with your veterinary team. We take pride in taking extra time during all of our exams to make sure your pet is comfortable in the clinic and making sure they have a good experience. These exams ensure that your pet is up to date on all vaccines, appropriately dewormed and are a great time to have important conversations with the veterinarian. For example discussing nutrition, timing for spays or neuters, house training and socialization are all important parts of the exam.
Vaccinations
Weight Management Consults
If you’re struggling to get your pet to lose weight or to maintain a healthy weight, you’re not alone and the Summerside team is here to support you! Our veterinary team is happy to assess your pet’s body condition score and discuss their diet and lifestyle with you to make recommendations for maintaining a healthy weight.
We can provide a breakdown of how many calories your pet would need to take in during a day to either lose weight or maintain their current weight, depending on the situation. We can provide recommendations for weight loss diets, or work with your current diet depending on what might work best for their individual needs. We can also provide recommendations for ways to increase your pet’s activity levels at home to help them on this journey.
We also recommend coming in for regular, no charge, weigh-ins following a weight management consult to ensure that your pet is losing weight at a healthy rate. Our team will make a follow up plan with you to provide continued support.
Pet Products & Pet Food
Nutritional Advice
Our team is happy to provide nutritional advice for your pet based on their current life stage and needs. Nutrition should be tailored to the individual based on age, concurrent health concerns and body condition. We can provide advice on choosing the right diet for your pet to ensure they are receiving balanced nutrition that supports their health and well being.
Senior Pet Health
Senior pets often require additional preventative medical care to make sure they stay in tip top shape. We recommend at least bi-annual check ups for senior pets to make sure that if any issues arise that we are able to address them early. We also recommend more regular diagnostic testing to ensure that we have a good baseline of what is normal for your pet when they’re healthy. This also ensures that we catch any potential concerns early so that we can prevent major issues before they happen.
We can also provide advice on things that may be beneficial for your senior pet such as joint supplements or implementing safe, long term plans for ensuring their comfort if they begin to experience age-related changes like arthritis. Keeping up with dental care is also important for senior animals and can make a huge impact on their quality of life. By engaging in preventative care for your senior pets you are not only benefiting them by ensuring they’re feeling their best but also potentially increasing their lifespan.
Surgery
We believe in providing the highest standard of care with all our patients, especially our surgical patients. With our highly skilled doctors and technicians, you can feel confident choosing Summerside for all your veterinary needs.
Some of the procedures include:
Neutering
Spaying
Foreign body removal
Exploratory laparotomy
Lumpectomy
Cystotomy
C-Section
Eye enucleation
Stenotic nares correction
Laceration repair
Dental Care
We provide comprehensive oral health assessments and treatments at our clinic. This can involved a general assessment of the teeth and gums and recommendations about preventative care, to preventative regular cleanings and well as comprehensive cleaning and extraction procedures as needed. Our cleaning and assessment includes thorough charting, probing, dental radiographs, piezoelectric scaling and scaling below the gum line and polishing. We strive to communicate openly with owners to make a plan for improving your pet’s oral health.
Microchipping
Microchips are the most effective tool to ensure that if your pet ever escapes or is stolen that they are able to be traced back to you. They can be scanned at any veterinary clinic or animal control service to find your contact info. Tattoos often fade over time and become illegible, and collars and tags can either fall off or be removed, so we recommend having all pets microchipped.
We provide microchipping services with microchips registered through 24PetWatch. If you have your own microchip we can also insert those if you prefer. This can be done on an awake animal if required, though for your pet’s optimal comfort we try to do them the same day the pet needs to be sedated for a procedure, such as a spay or neuter.
When your pet is microchipped we will register them with the information provided that day. In addition, you will have online access to edit or add any additional information you would like. Please ensure that you keep all of your contact information up to date with your microchip company to ensure your pet’s safe return in the event they are lost.
Ultrasound
We currently offer ultrasound services at our clinic by appointment.
Digital X-Ray
Radiographs are a very effective tool to diagnose your pet’s potential medical condition. They may be able to help pin point what is exactly going on with your animal. Typically your pet will be awake for their x-rays and will be held by the technician while your pet lays on the x-rays table. In most cases the x-ray process is very quick, and the image is sent over to the computer instantly for the Doctor’s review.
Our clinic has digital x-ray technology, which allows us to provide you with results quickly. We are able to x-ray to assess for skeletal injury, soft tissue abnormalities, the heart and lung fields, presence of fluid in the abdomen or chest, and a variety of other conditions. The digital x-ray also allows for ease of sending to referral practices or specialists if additional input or assessment is required.
We can perform non-sedated or sedated x-rays depending on what is best for your pet and their comfort level.
In House Lab
We offer a wide range of extensive in-house lab testing for your pet, providing you with same-day results. We have an in-house hematology and chemistry analyzer that can provide a large range of data. We also have laboratory equipment that allows us to do a variety of manual testing. Our skilled technicians can also assess urine samples, fecal samples, as well as any number of cytologic samples ranging from ear smears to samples from masses.
We also work closely with an outside laboratory for any testing that cannot be done in-clinic, which also has a rapid turnaround for results.
Preventative Care
We are big proponents of preventative care because it is not only better for the health and wellbeing of your pet, but it can also be better for your finances down the road. We recommend having at least a yearly physical exam even in healthy pets as we can often pick up on concerns prior to escalation. We are also always happy to provide information on things you can do at home to ensure that your pet’s are healthy and avoid issues, such as advice on diet and nutrition or advice on providing at home dental care. Another aspect of preventative medicine is regular veterinary dental cleanings to avoid dental disease and tooth loss down the road.
Internal Medicine
Various internal medicine services can be provided in-clinic. This includes diagnostic testing for a variety of issues such as kidney disease, diabetes, endocrine disorders or assessment of other internal organ function. We also have in-clinic radiology services when that can benefit the case, and can have an ultrasonographer come to the clinic when needed. We can also provide referrals to internal medicine specialists for complex cases depending on what is required for your pet.
Emergency Care
We offer emergency care for pets depending on the situation and staff availability. We are well equipped to handle most emergencies in clinic. Some examples include emergency laceration repairs, toxin ingestions, seizing episodes of acute injuries. Please call the clinic if you have a small animal emergency during clinic hours and we will do our best to accommodate you or provide advice on the best course of action.
Hospitalization
We offer in clinic hospitalization services depending on the situation. We can provide attentive care, IV fluids, IV medications and in-clinic testing for various conditions. However, we are not a 24-hour clinic so each situation will be individually assessed by the veterinarian to ensure that what is best for your pet will be provided. If needed we can provide referral to the 24-hour clinics if your pet needs 24-hour care.
End of life Care
While end of life care is never an easy topic, we are always willing to provide advice and discuss with you to make the best decision for your pet. Providing end of life care for your pet is often a last act of kindness you can provide your pet when the time is right. We do our best to provide your pet and family with comfort, compassion and empathy during this difficult time. We do our utmost to ensure that this day goes as smoothly as possible for your family and do everything we can to ensure that your pet has a peaceful passing and is free from stress.
We work with Part of the Family Pet Memorial Centre for cremation services, for which there are a range of options we can provide. This can involve having ashes returned to you if you would like and there are a wide range of urns and memorials available. We also work with Pear Tree for ceramic paw prints if that is something that your family would like to have as a keepsake.
