It depends on what the numbers are. Generally, we like to check the lab work once a year, depending on the kitty’s age, to see where the numbers are going. And other than that, it depends on what the results are. If you notice kidney disease, we like to monitor those values periodically. If we start on any medication, we recheck the lab work afterward to monitor the response of the medication.

If the cat is sick or there's any change in how they're doing at home, we do la work. The last thing we consider is some additional tests to our screening lab work. Sometimes we add on other tests like urine culture or extended thyroid panels if it's not completely clear on the lab work what's wrong.

We like to do lab work a little more frequently in senior cats because they have a higher incidence of disease, most commonly kidney disease and hyperthyroidism. And again, we need that baseline to see where their numbers trend over time.

Mainly for baseline lab values. We like to track the numbers over time to see if they do get sick in the future where that started and see where those changes happen and how long it took for those changes to happen. We might also get lab work with kittens to prepare for anesthesia, if needed, for a dental cleaning or some other procedure.

A couple of reasons. Most commonly, we do kitten lab work in preparation for their spay and neuter. So we always want to check lab work before they go under anesthesia to make sure it's safe for them. Otherwise, we’d do lab work if there are any signs of illness— vomiting, weight loss, if their appetite is down, and also there's some viral testing we like to do on kittens as well.

Kitties are very stressed-out creatures in general, so we always try to minimize stressors as much as possible. We like to keep them in a room by themselves where there aren’t any dogs in the background or people that can scare them. We usually have at least two to three people on the case, one drawing the sample, one holding and petting the kitty, and maybe one distracting if we think that it's necessary.