It depends on your lifestyle and what type of breed you're looking for—a small breed or a larger, giant breed. You want to ensure that the puppy's personality matches what you're able to do for them. It’s also important to know how big they're going to be whenever they're an adult. And I know that can be a little hard if you're getting the puppy from a shelter or a rescue, as they might not know what breed mix they are.

You also don’t want a puppy interfering with housing or anything like that, especially if you’re renting. All of those are things you have to take into consideration whenever looking at puppies.

You want to consider the breeds you are interested in and how they match your lifestyle. So, in the case of an energetic breed, make sure that your lifestyle is pretty active. Because if you have a more sedate-type lifestyle, you may be in for a rude awakening as far as how much energy your puppy has.

The commitment and time you need are the two most important things about raising a puppy. Puppies are going to be around. They're going to turn into adult dogs. They're not going to stay little puppies forever. So, you have to realize that. They're going to turn into big puppies at some point or another, and eventually adults and then senior dogs. So, you need to make sure that you have the willingness to commit to that and to that time and make sure that you're putting in the effort and the budget for it.

The most common sign that we run into that owners have mentioned is that their pets act like puppies again after laser therapy. So not a complaint, as there are no side effects or anything that you generally have to watch for.

So we like to have an exam done here, but as long as it's done within the past year here, we can set up a plan for you based on your concerns. But a lot of times, yeah, I would anticipate that there will be an exam.

How often do you brush your teeth? We’d love that to be the number of times you brush your cat's teeth. But really though, most cats, my cat included, are not interested in me brushing her teeth. Some cats are excellent at brushing. And you can kind of play around with different techniques; whether you use a tiny toothbrush or the little finger brushes, or even a little gauze pad, you can let them mess or chew on certain things with the toothpaste on it. In an ideal world, all joking aside, brushing is recommended if your cat does allow that. It's great for dental care. And several times a week would be the recommendation, but we don't want people getting hurt. We don't want to stress the cats out and force it upon them. We can try other little things such as water additives or dental chews—those can be some different ways to work on home dental care for cats.

What's even more important is to get your cat in and get an exam because when they come in twice a year, we can catch issues before they get really bad. And I know we struggle getting cats in; more dogs come in than cats. It can be more challenging to get them in without them whining and crying. The cat comfort kits can help, so there are no excuses for missing those annual and semi-annual wellness visits.

Of course, I don't know human medicine that well. But human allergies are mainly of the inhalant variety. So we have the hay fever-like symptoms, watery eyes, stuffy nose, even some coughing, and sometimes a postnasal drip. And dogs can have some inhalant components. But for the most part, dogs allergies are contact related. In other words, there are things that dogs are touching, laying down on, and are experiencing in the environment as they run through grasses and things that are causing contact allergies. So they are different, but they have some similarities also. But that's the main difference.