Are there health issues I can watch out for at home?

Absolutely. One of the most common things is that sometimes our dogs get overweight. Keeping a dog a normal weight has been proven to increase the length of their life and better their lifestyle. The other thing you can do is make sure that their hair coat is clean. Look how beautiful Cash is. Ensure that they're clean, not matted, and they don't have any fleas and parasites. You should provide the correct nutrition, great exercise, heartworm prevention, and flea and tick prevention in this area. Those are things that you can do to provide them to make sure that they stay nice and healthy at home.

Yeah, definitely. So this is a good question and check out our YouTube page because we also made a video to detect if your pets have skin issues, but licking at the paws, scratching at their ears, the cartoon where the dog's scooting their butt across the floor, we think it's so cute, but that could be an anal gland issue, a biting at the rump of the tail could indicate fleas, general normal things that they're not doing on a normal basis anymore like eating regularly, maybe they're eating less, any vomiting, diarrhea, not eating at all drinking more or less water, acting tired, not wanting to walk as far or as much. Little subtle signs like this are a good indication something potentially could be going on. And a good rule of thumb, especially with eating, think about putting yourself in that position. If you haven't eaten or drank in a day, how would you feel? And sometimes people, they wait it out a little bit. Don't do that. Just if they're not eating or drinking, please bring them in right away. That's an important sign in pets that something's going on.

I don't know if there are health issues you can watch at home, but there are certainly health signs that you can watch for at home to point you to a more significant problem. What am I talking about? Specifically, when I hear this question, the one that comes to my mind is a dog that's reluctant to jump on and off of things now. I have a couple of small dogs at home, and they're like little jumping beans—they want on and off everything. What happens if one day they want to jump on you, but they don't? Or they want to jump on the couch, but they don't? They sit there, and they pause. They're like, "Ooh." As subtle as that seems, you might think, "Oh, they're just tired today." It could be that they have a hurt back as well. Or maybe they have a cruciate problem, a kneecap or something like that. Little subtle changes in their activity level can lead us to much bigger pictures.

Also, watch how much they drink, how much they urinate and check their bowel movements from time to time. I'm not saying you've got to stay around them every single day and time that they go. I have diagnosed many dogs with diabetes or kidney problems, even thyroid issues, just because of water intake and urination habits. All of those things factor in, and it's all little subtle things that you can look for and keep watch for at home.

Yes. You need to look for behavioral changes, such as changes in appetite, sleeping patterns, and interactions with you and your family. If your dog is getting tired sooner during walks, sleeping more, waking you up in the middle of the night, or going to the bathroom more than normal, those could be signs of issues.