So preventative care is a pillar of our clinic. This is part of our philosophy—strong, preventative care to just do that, prevent things from happening later in life...to prevent kittens from getting sick, prevent them from transmitting anything to the owner. So some preventative care is fecal testing or poop testing to check for any parasites. Because sometimes you can't see parasites that are worms on the stool. It can be eggs, and these can be zoonotic, or transmissible to people. We get them proper vaccinations to protect them from diseases that are common in cats. We administer blood tests to make sure they weren't born with that with a virus that sometimes some kitty cats can get. We check their heart, their lungs. So, regular veterinary appointments are going to be very important. Do not forget flea and tick control. Cats are very good at hiding fleas, as they groom often.

There are a lot of things to consider with preventive care. Preventive care is actually really good nutrition. You get on a name brand food, like a Purina food or Royal Canin or Hills, and feed them only kitten food up until they're a year—that's preventative medicine because you're getting started out on a clean plane of health.

Second of all, the vaccinations are key to preventative care. They're trying to prevent diseases that we just don't even want to see anymore.

The third would be a flea and tick medication because fleas can come into your house. They can come in on the dog, and ticks can come in. Sometimes cats just go out on porches and windowsills. And so that's also preventative medicine.

And then the other part of preventative medicine is to get your cat spayed or neutered when they get older, or at about six months of age.

Absolutely. First of all, rabies is required by law, so you have to have that one. Feline leukemia is important because once in a while a cat could get out, even though your intention was for them to be inside. And the feline distemper combination, that's upper respiratory, so that can be carried in actually on other clothes. You may have another cat, someone may bring a cat over, you may go over to someone else's house who has a cat who's sneezing. So even though you have an indoor cat, you definitely want to keep your cat up to date on vaccines. Plus sometimes they get groomed or you have to board them, and then they are around other cats that you weren't thinking about originally.

This is a question we get often. And my answer to that is, as a kitten, if they're strictly indoors and they have zero contact from other cats outside, and when I mean zero contact, you don't leave the windows open with a screen, you don't have a screen door where they can go up and maybe another kitten can come out and sneeze and get some respiratory aerosols into their eyes or face, or hiss. They don't go outside to the backyard and back in—they're strictly indoors. Then what we do recommend is get them caught up on their kitten vaccinations, we get them their annual vaccinations, and then we can hold off. If they have any possibility of going outside, regular vaccinations at least annually should be required.

Vaccinations typically in kittens are multiple vaccines known as FERCP, feline leukemia, and rabies, all depending on your cat's lifestyle.

Bring the kitten in right away so we can discuss this. Different ages require them to come at different times. For example, let's say you get a 14-week-old cat. They might not be coming as frequently as that of a 4 or 6-week-old kitten, who we need to see more regularly.

Well, first bring your kitten to the veterinarian as soon as you get your kitten, so we can do a physical exam, get them off to a great start. And then from there, the veterinarian will let you know when the next time that they need to come in for follow-up blood work when to spay and neuter them, and what vaccines need to be done. But get started right away.

The first thing they need is a feline distemper vaccine. It's a combination vaccine that protects against feline distemper and upper respiratory vaccines. And we usually give those at 8 weeks, 12 weeks, and 16 weeks.

The second thing that the American Association of Feline Practitioners recommends is that we do a feline leukemia vaccine on all kittens. They'll need two of those four weeks apart. And it is required by law in all states that they have a rabies vaccine, so that'll be given when they're about 16 weeks of age. Additionally, we do a blood test to make sure the kitten has started out without having feline leukemia and FIV. And we always ask you to bring a stool sample in as well so that we can run a fecal and look for roundworms, hookworms, tapeworms, coccidia, and giardia.

At your first visit you'll get introduced to the team. You'll get introduced to how we are going to go about caring for your pet in the different lifestyles and phases. We'll talk about a lot of information on behavior, and do a thorough physical exam. We make sure there are no congenital abnormalities that have gone undetected, or underlying parasites like fleas or ticks. And we’ll just have an overall discussion of your kitten's health and needs. Be prepared to discuss lifestyle as well. Are you thinking about having an indoor kitty or outdoor kitty? How many pets do you have in the house? So these are some things to expect to discuss and for us to go over at your veterinary visit.

What I would expect is that you brought in their history and any previous medical records that you have, so we know where we're starting. You hopefully brought in a history of observations that you made with your kitten since you've had it. And you might have a list of questions that you want to bring in also, and obviously that you brought in a kitten! So that's what we're going to have. And then the veterinarian is going to do a full physical examination and ask you some follow-up questions as well.