I get asked that question all the time, and the answer is that unless you're going to commit to brushing your dog's teeth twice a day every day, it's not beneficial to do an occasional brushing here or there. The veterinary dentists do recommend twice-daily brushing, which, if you're like me, that's hard to fit into my busy schedule. So, what I like to do instead is give things like dental treats, dental chews, or even something like water additives because then I feel like I'm rewarding my dog with a treat, and it's helping take care of their teeth.

There are different things to consider with indoor versus outdoor cats—things they're exposed to outdoors that they might not get exposed to indoors and vice versa. In general, if you have a cat that goes in and out, I would encourage the cat to be in at night. That's probably better for their wellness and safety. Didn’t everyone’s mothers say that nothing good happens after 11 PM? Cats need to be in, too, as there are no good things out there happening at night for them either. They're more at risk for getting injured, getting attacked, disappearing, or having other things happen.

Whether you have an indoor-only cat, an indoor, outdoor cat, or an outdoor-only cat, they can be exposed to parasites. We recommend the Revolution plus, as it protects against fleas and ticks and heartworms, ear mites, intestinal parasites. There are many things that cats can be exposed to both inside and outside.

There are also certain lifestyle vaccines that we recommend for cats. If a cat never is exposed to another cat that goes outdoors, is the only cat in the household and indoors only, they probably don’t need a leukemia vaccine. Yet a cat that goes outside or one that's exposed to a cat that goes in and out would need something to consider to help with their wellness. There are differences and similarities in how you handle indoor vs. outdoor cats.

You can do quite a few things, even things as simple as appropriate feeding, trying to maintain proper weight, and having a safe environment for them so they can't hurt themselves or get into things. Cats get a little trickier beyond that. Because cats can get upset and be very picky about certain things, these things can cause stress in their lives. And when cats have stress in their lives, they put stress in your lives—sometimes urinating in inappropriate places or causing other issues.

Some other critical cat-specific things have to do with litter box maintenance, how many litter boxes per number of cats in the household. The general rule is to have one more than the number of cats that you have. For some people with five cats, for example, that's a little bit much, but it’s imperative to adhere to those numbers. Also, don't have eight litter boxes lined up in the same room. If you have a three-story house, you're going to want to probably have one on each story and in different parts of the house. You're going to want to have them where the cats can feel comfortable. This isn’t always our most convenient location, as you don’t want to tuck it somewhere that a cat's scared to go or feels trapped to go. Instead, use places where the cat is comfortable and wants to go. Most cats also appreciate frequently scooped litter boxes. Don't change anything if they like their litter—don't give them newer, different litter. Some of those things can stress cats out. And when you have stressed cats, it is going to affect their wellness in general.

You should also consider enrichment. Cats like to lay around a lot and lay in the sun and enjoy things, but they also enjoy playing. Some cats like the laser pointers, having something you can interact with, having different levels, and having little cat trees or places they can climb or get away.

And then if you have a multi-species household - if you have little children, dogs, or other creatures in the house - cats want a special place to go to be away. If they feel like they need to get away from the hustle and bustle, having that place is also very important for their enrichment and their wellness in general.

Every time they come in, we're going to be looking at those teeth, but I’d say once or twice a year minimally on that. And you should be keeping an eye on it yourself at home. Cats can be tricky, just like they are with all kinds of diseases. They get some common diseases that can be more under the gum line than visible up top. You want to look for subtleties at the gum line or changes in how they're eating—are they drooling, or is there anything weird going on there? Keep checking your cat's mouth as much as they'll let you, of course. Some cats are a little trickier than others on that. But certainly, at least with their twice-yearly checkups, we would want to keep an eye on that.

As far as dental cleanings, I'd say most cats don't tend to need them more than once a year, depending on the cat. Some don't even need them that often. If we find that your cat has some of those lesions under the gum line, we're probably going to be monitoring and rechecking those at least yearly with dental x-rays under anesthesia.

They sure do. With kittens, there are many more things that are changing. They need more vaccines early on to get their immune system ready, so they come in every three to four weeks at first to get the appropriate vaccine series. And then we watch trends as they're growing and changing to make sure things are on par for where we want them.

We recommend twice-yearly physicals for all pets in general of all ages. When they have other diseases or get older, there may be reasons to come in more often than that, but we recommend twice yearly. Cats and dogs age a lot quicker than we do, and so a lot can happen in a cat's lifespan in just six months.

We are looking for a baseline, so we are looking for things to compare to later. Especially as a cat gets older, there are certain things we want to know where they were when they were younger, where they were as things were going along, so we can look for things like diabetes, kidney disease, hyperthyroid disease as they get older. Wellness visits get us ready for future visits. It’s also not always easy to tell when your cat has gained or lost some weight unless it's a significant amount, and so when we catch some of those trends, we can catch some diseases early and make some changes.

Well, some of it depends on you and your cat. Is your cat healthy? Are there a lot of problems we need to address? Do you have a lot of questions? Is your cat older or younger? And what have we gotten into so far? Typically, we schedule routine cat wellness exams for 30 minutes. We’ll schedule senior cats for about an hour, giving a little more time for the collection of samples and going over certain aspects.