Hello from your friends at Suburban Animal Clinic!
We hope your holiday season is happy and blessed. 
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Happy Holidays from all of us at Suburban Animal Clinic
To help our animal friends that don't have homes we'll be collecting donations for Columbus Humane (formerly Capital Area Humane Society).  Here is a link to their wishlist, we will be collecting items and will drop them off in the beginning of January. The most wanted items include food (dog or cat) and Kong toys. They feed 142 lbs of kibble daily to the dogs and cats they take care of!  They also have on-line donating and a wishlist on amazon.com.
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Holiday Reminders

We want you and your pets to have the best holidays you can. Don't let your pets get into the candy stash or into any of the holiday foods that may make them sick. Almost everyone knows to avoid chocolate with their dogs and the ASPCA has a list of other things to not feed them.  Another thing to prevent your animals from getting into - the artificial sweetener xylitol (found in many things including chewing gum and no sugar peanut butter). High fat foods also frequently cause animals to become sick.

Please don't feed your pet pain relievers like Asprin, Tylenol, Advil, Aleve, etc. These medications can cause liver or kidney damage, and some animals have died due to taking these medications. It can also interfere with and prevent our veterinarians from prescribing the most effective and beneficial medication for your pet.

Although you may be eating a bunch of holiday treats (and trust us, we will be too) your animals should be kept on their regular food. The main thing your pet wants from you this holiday season is your love and attention.
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Tips for Saving Money with Your Pet

Don't overfeed your pet. The amount of food that is suggested on the bag is a starting point. You should be feeding to body condition, not just a set amount for the rest of the dog's life.  OSU has a website has more information about body condition and how to know if your animals is too heavy or too skinny. Many of the animals we see are overweight and the pet obesity prevention website has more information. 

 
Use appropriate preventative care. We recommend monthly heartworm preventative and flea preventative. 
  • The cost of heartworm prevention for a year for a medium sized dog - about $100. The cost of treating heartworms in a medium sized dog - about $1000 plus the treatment is painful and heartworms can cause permanent changes to the heart.
  • It's much easier and cheaper to use the preventative than to treat for fleas in your house. This could mean possibly needing to call an exterminator, treating your pet for skin infections and treating for tapeworms (which are carried by fleas).
Don't wait until your animal is really sick to seek medical care. Animals do a good job hiding illness so when your dog or cat is really down and out their disease process may be very progressed. We recommend seeking medical care early when we may be able to help with in-home therapy, sometimes when we don't see animals until they are really sick they need to be hospitalized which is more costly and stressful.

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Stress and Diarrhea

Stress can cause lots of changes to the body. We frequently see diarrhea and GI upset with short-term stress. Things like visitors to the house, going to the vet or groomer, and even going on vacation can be stressful to your pet who is used to their daily routines. What can you do to prevent these episodes of diarrhea? Pre-biotics and pro-biotics can be helpful to promote the good gut bacteria. Pre-biotics are things that promote good gut bacteria like fiber. Pro-biotics are live microorganisms that are part of healthy gut flora.  Some of the Hill's Science Diet foods like i/d now contain pre-biotics and we carry multiple different probiotic options in pastes, capsules, tablets and powders that can be added to food.  If you're seeing diarrhea in the litterbox or in your yard we recommend an exam, but sometimes if your animal is prone to having stress diarrhea prebiotics and probiotics can help prevent diarrhea from starting. Give us a call if you think your pet would benefit from prebiotics or probiotics.

Suburban Animal Clinic | (614) 276-5479 | info@suburbananimalclinic.com
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