PET WELLNESS EXAMS

At the beginning of every wellness exam at Eastown Veterinary Clinic, your pet's exam assistant will ask you questions to obtain a complete medical history for your pet. This way, we can determine right away if there have been any changes in health or behavior since your last visit. Your pet's veterinarian will then assess your pet's overall appearance and body condition during a physical examination. This examination includes:

  • Listening to the heart and lungs
  • Feeling for signs of pain, tumors, or any other unusual changes in the body
  • Checking joints for signs of arthritis or muscle weakness
  • Examining the eyes, ears, and mouth for any signs of disease
Your veterinarian will alert you to any abnormalities they find and will make recommendations to encourage the best health for your pet.

In addition to a complete physical exam, during wellness exams, we will also draw a blood sample to test your pet for heartworm disease and will check a stool sample for intestinal parasites. Depending on your pet's age and general health status, we will recommend a tailored blood panel and possibly a urinalysis to evaluate the health of the internal organs and help detect early stages of a disease.

Wellness examinations are the most important part of preventative healthcare for pets in all stages of life, from puppies and kitten to senior pets. They allow us to detect changes such as weight gain or loss, dental disease, and other subtle differences you may not notice at home. Many diseases become more dangerous and easier to contract as pets get older, so routine wellness exams and blood panels are particularly important for helping us detect diseases in senior pets before those diseases become serious problems.

With early diagnosis, many diseases, like dental disease, diabetes, and heart disease, can be treated, and early treatment can greatly decrease pain and improve your pet's overall health and well-being. Early detection and treatment can also help extend your pet's life.

VACCINATIONS

Vaccinations protect pets from and significantly reduce the severity of infection and disease. Vaccinating pets also protects owners from zoonotic diseases, which are diseases that are transferable from animals to humans. Zoonotic diseases that commonly affect our pets include rabies and leptospirosis. The frequency and type of vaccines we administer depend on many factors, including the lifestyle of the pet being vaccinated (like if they are indoor and/or outdoor), travel, grooming and boarding habits, underlying disease (like immune-mediated diseases), pre-existing conditions and risk of exposure. Your Eastown veterinarian will work with you to determine which vaccines are necessary for your pet.

Vaccines work by introducing an antigen (a small piece or part of the disease) into the body to stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies, the body's defenders. If your pet is older than 4 months and has never had vaccines before, it will take two vaccinations given three to four weeks apart to build a strong enough army of antibodies to fight off that disease for one full year.

We administer vaccines to puppies and kittens every three to four weeks until they are four months old. After the initial vaccine series, vaccines are administered every one to three years, depending on the vaccine, to keep your pet's immune system strong.

DIAGNOSTICS

We're proud to serve Grand Rapids, MI
and the surrounding communities.

As a community-focused veterinarian in Grand Rapids, MI, we offer a new level of full-service veterinary medicine at our facility on Lake Drive. We strive to offer excellence and earn the title as your favorite veterinarian in Grand Rapids.

HOURS

Mon - Fri: 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Sat: Closed
Sun: Closed
We are closed from 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM on Tuesdays ONLY.