Posts in Category: Pet Health & Wellness

Guinea pigs may be small, cute, and fluffy, but they have veterinary needs just like dogs and cats. If you’re venturing into the world of pocket pets for the first time, you may feel unsure about how to care for a guinea pig. Is a guinea pig easy to take care of? Or does it require more attention than your other pets? 

Does it feel like stressful, scary situations often happen after office hours? That’s how we feel sometimes. It’s tough to know when to drive your pet to a 24-hour emergency animal hospital and when to wait until your veterinary office opens its doors during normal business hours. You want your pet to feel better now. 

At Oakhurst Veterinary Hospital, we offer urgent and emergency care seven days a week during our normal business hours. If your pet needs emergency care outside of our office hours, we’ll refer you to one of two 24-hour animal hospitals nearby. Here are a few tips to help you decide what type of care your pet needs: 

Keeping your dog at their ideal weight is a lifelong aspiration and is directly related to optimal, age-appropriate nutrition. While many dog owners struggle to control weight gain as their dog ages, pet obesity doesn’t affect all animals. In fact, lots of dogs lose weight in their golden years, prompting owners to reassess senior dog nutrition.  A bit of weight loss might not be cause for concern, but it can also indicate one or more health problems.

Most dogs love to eat. Changes in appetite can be concerning and may be your first clue that something is not right with your pet’s health. Sometimes, though, there are other reasons for Bella skipping breakfast. Oakhurst Veterinary Hospital can help you sort out whether you have cause for concern the next time your dog is not eating.

Feline whiskers have wonderful abilities and serve important purposes beyond adding to the cuteness quotient of kittens and adult cats. Whiskers are uber-sensitive and provide felines with valuable information about their surroundings. These long, thick, tactile hairs send signals to a cat’s brain and sensory system. These signals help cats navigate in the dark, detect changes in air movement, and let them know if they can squeeze into tight spaces. 

But what happens when a cat’s sensitive whiskers become overstimulated with too much touch? Whisker fatigue (sometimes called whisker stress) can be the result of a cat’s whiskers brushing against too many things and transmitting an onslaught of messages to the cat’s brain. 

Dogs with flat noses are commonly referred to as brachycephalic dogs. The term “cephalic” refers to the head, while the term “brachy” means short. Brachycephalic dogs have shorter skull bones, which give their face and nose a pushed-in appearance.

The anatomy of the face and nose, as well as its relationship to other soft tissue structures, are altered as a result of the shorter face and nose bones. Some of these changes may result in physical issues for these types of dogs.

Do you have pet medications hanging out in your medicine cabinet that you are debating keeping or tossing? It can be a hard decision to make. On one hand, keeping leftover medication could save you some money or a vet visit. On the other hand, though, should you really be giving expired pet medications? Oakhurst Veterinary Hospital is here to shed a little light on the topic. 

Hormones are pretty amazing little compounds. So much of our body’s functioning depends on a delicate balance of them. When something goes wrong with their production or interaction, though, the results can be disastrous. The foundation of many diseases in both pets and people, hormone issues can really wreak havoc on the body’s normal functioning. 

Thyroid hormone is a very important chemical messenger within the body of our pets. If too little is produced (hypothyroidism), trouble can occur. We also see hyperthyroidism in pets, where too much thyroid hormone is produced. Oakhurst Veterinary Hospital has the information you need to tell if your pet is having trouble with hyperthyroidism.

As cat owners, we want our feline companions to live long and healthy lives. In order to do this, we need to consider certain things like how much salt is too much for our cat’s diet.

Cats require less sodium than humans, which makes it important for pet owners to regularly check the sodium content in the food they give their cats.

Here’s what you need to know:

Do Cats Need Salt in Their Diet?

While there are definitely species differences, there are a wide number of medical conditions that both animals and people share. Anemia in pets is one of those that occur in dogs, cats, and people alike. Oakhurst Veterinary Hospital has all the info that you need to know if your pet is affected.  

What is Anemia Anyways?

Anemia is the medical term for a low red blood cell count. Red blood cells are the components of blood that are responsible for carrying oxygen to the various tissues throughout the body. Without them, life becomes very difficult.