Does your fido or fluffy have bad breath? That offensive odor could signify serious health risks for you beloved pet. To help keep you aware of potential health issues, we've compiled a list of dental and oral complications to look out for.

Here are the top 10 things you need to know:

1. Periodontal disease is the #1 diagnosed problem in dogs and cats. By age 3, 85% of dogs & cats are affected with some level of dental disease.
    

Obesity is an accumulation of excessive energy stored by adipose (fatty) tissue sufficient enough to contribute to disease. It is the most common form of malnutrition in our companion animals and it is growing in frequency due to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle coupled with highly-palatable, energy-dense food sources.

Obesity can significantly increase the risk of various diseases and can negatively impact both the quality of life as well as the life span of our pets.

Conditions associated with obesity include:

April is National Heartworm Awareness Month! Are your pets protected? Here’s what you need to know.

Heartworms are transmitted by mosquitos.

Heartworms are long, spaghetti-like parasites that live in the heart or pulmonary arteries. These worms cause disease by clogging the heart and major blood vessels, resulting in reduced blood supply to other organs, such as the liver, kidney and lungs.

Are you prepared for a pet emergency? Just like humans, animals can experience several kinds of medical crises, like allergic reactions, bites, wounds, heat stroke and poisoning. The most important thing you can do in these types of situations is seek immediate veterinary care.

First aid measures should never replace professional medical attention; however, keeping emergency supplies in your home or car may help your pet in a critical situation before you can get to a vet.

When preparing a first aid kit for your pet, consider including these items:

Taking your dog or cat to their vet appointment can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you don’t know what to expect. Here are some helpful questions we suggest you ask at your next appointment:

We know that pets are more than just companion animals—they are family. We let them sleep in our beds, share our meals from time to time, and lick our faces clean. But love isn’t the only thing going on between people and pets. Humans can contract many illnesses—called zoonotic diseases—from animals, even our furry family members. Thankfully, simple precautions like education, good hygiene, and appropriate veterinary care can greatly reduce your risk.

The internet is an amazing resource, one that has completely transformed our lives. It answers an infinite amount of questions for us, as the press of a button, anywhere we are at anytime.

The problem is, maybe we have too many answers, and from some unreliable sources to boot. If you were to Google “sick pet symptoms”, you would have 1.36 million results at your fingertips in 0.67 seconds. So where do you even begin?

While there is far more research performed for the benefit of humans than for pets, we know that much of the initial research into human disease and pharmaceuticals is performed using animals; therefore, we learn about them as a side effect.

In the veterinary field, many of the therapeutics we use to treat disease come from human medicine, at least initially. The treatment of cancer is no exception, and in fact, some cancer treatments derived from human medicine have worked well for animals. Others, however, have not.