Health:

General Health
Life Style
Genetics
Vet Visits
Common Health Problems:

You should consult your veterinarian if your pet shows any of the following signs:

Abnormal discharges from the nose, eyes, or other body openings.

Loss of appetite, marked weight losses or gains, or excessive water consumption.

Difficult, abnormal, or uncontrolled waste elimination.

Abnormal behavior, sudden viciousness, or lethargy.

Abnormal lumps, limping, or difficulty getting up or lying down.

Excessive head shaking, scratching, and licking or biting any part of the body.

Dandruff, loss of hair, open sores, and a ragged or dull coat.

Foul breath or excessive tarter deposits on teeth.

Life Style

Diet: When you feed a high quality food, you receive high quality results. Alpo is not high quality. It is cheap, and seems like a good idea, but it can also seriously affect the lifespan of your pet. Cheap pet foods hurts your pet, there is no ifs, ands, or maybes.

Home: If your pet is an outside dog or cat, an inside/outside cat, you have cut down its life span. Living outside takes extreme wear and tear on your animal. They must compensate for extreme elements, and this uses up their already short life. Inside/outside animals have a shortened life, and frankly, the cat is probably going to be hit by a car or killed by another animal or person.

Inside animals live longer. Period. Cats do not have to be inside/outside. Cats are territorial and will happily claim the house as their stalking grounds. Get a litter box, its just not complicated.

If you don't want your dog inside, why do you have it? How well can your dog guard your house tied up out back? Dogs are social, pack animals. Being resigned to outside will stunt it.

This does not apply for kennels. These dogs receive a log of interaction with people and each other. They live in kennels, which are basically houses with outside access, because there are normally to many of them to go inside. I speak of a kennel, normally these people train or show the animals, not a pen in your back yard where your dog stays.

Genetics

We can only watch and hope for the best. If you receive a pure breed animal, you can research its genetic background. This will tell you if your pet is prone to cancers, allergies, crippling bone disorders, thyroid gland issues, and possible allergies.

Of all of the above allergies and thyroid issues are the easiest to battle. Please look before you leap.

Vet Visits

Going to the vet is more then pumping out a hundred dollars fro seemingly nothing. The vaccinations are required while the animal is young to make sure that it gains immunity to the diseases. Later, if you worry about possible problems and vaccinations there are not 'titters' out. They are a blood test that checks for the amount of immunity currently in your pets system.

In the United States of America you MUST regularly receive rabies shots. Very few places will accept a rabies titter. Rabies is not a joke. If your pet bite someone and you do not have a rabies vaccination 97% of the time they will put your pet down to check for rabies infection. Do not allow yourself to skip this and put your pet at risk!

Vet visits are expensive. However, there are many pet insurance companies currently out that will happily cover your pet against emergencies. There are lots of plans to choose from, go look at a few. For 10 bucks a month you can often receive up to 8,000$ in emergency coverage.

And when you do go to the vet, don't think you're concerns are unimportant. Out of the normal habits and behaviors are often the first warning signs. And I you see blood, say something! It took us two weeks to diagnose a urinary tract infection once because the lady did not tell us she was seeing blood in the cat's urine. She thought it was unimportant.

Common Health Problems:

Bloat- Dog

Urinary Tract Infections - Cat

Cancer - Dog/Cat

Hip Dysphasia - Dog

Feline Leukemia/Aids - Cat

Heartworms - Dogs (may affect Cats)