What will my veterinarian do during a cat preventive care appointment?

A lot of times we like to start with exams. On Mr. Dwight here, I want to look at their eyes. I look to look at their ears. I like to open up and look in their mouths, make sure that their teeth look healthy and their gums look healthy, and we do not see any concerns. And then we work our way through the body from the tip of their nose, all the way to the tip of their tail, and just look at every single little body part—their legs, belly, all of that good stuff. And then, as cats get older, we'll recommend some wellness blood work just to make sure that we do not see things like kidney disease or liver disease, or perhaps something like an overactive thyroid or diabetes. We want to rule out those kinds of common older cat diseases.

During that appointment, we will do a complete physical exam. One of the first things we do is talk about history. So we ask questions like do you have any concerns? Because even on a regular wellness exam, a lot of times, clients have questions. Maybe their pet's doing something that they aren't used to or acting a certain way, and they want to know, is that normal? That's good for cats because if they change their behaviors or habits, there's usually a reason. They hide things so well. With the full physical exam, we talk about how we examine a pet from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail. We want to look at all aspects in between, whether that's looking at their teeth or proper dental hygiene, looking at their ears, making sure there are no infections there, listening to the heart, feeling the belly, and looking at the coat. That's a lot of what's involved in wellness exams.

These are usually called annual exams, and it's important to remember that our pets age much faster than us. During these exams, we do lab work to establish a baseline of health for your cat. This way, even if there is a subtle change, we can detect it. It's far better to catch a disease before your cat starts showing symptoms. This can mean the difference between aggressive medical management, which can be expensive, versus outpatient care which is less costly. Preventative medicine is so important because it allows us to catch potential issues early on.