Most of you may have no idea what I’m talking about. For those of you that do … HOORAY! For everyone else, this blog’s for you.

The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) is an organization dedicated to promoting veterinary excellence. It exists to support veterinary hospitals like Park Grove Pet Hospital in our goal to continue to improve, to provide excellent health care for your pet, and to help educate veterinarians and hospital staff in the cutting edge of animal health services. The Association develops industry benchmarks, business practice standards (known as the Standards of Accreditation), and informative publications and educational programs designed to help companion animal hospitals thrive.

For a few years, the doctors at PGPH have been talking about AAHA accreditation: what it means to us as individuals, as a practice, and in the industry. We all agreed that we wanted PGPH to be at the top of the field, and we work hard each day to continue to climb that hill. A way to show you, our clients, and our community that we were dedicated to quality and continual improvement was to complete the process for accreditation.

We met with the generous folks at Pet Crossing Animal Hospital and Dental Clinic in Bloomington to get some advice. One of the owners of that hospital, Dr. Kate Knutsen, is an AAHA board member and was very supportive in our application for accreditation. At the beginning of 2011, we decided to start the process.

The really encouraging thing was that PGPH had to change very little about our day-to-day practice. That gave us a lot of confidence: knowing we were already practicing medicine, surgery, and anesthesia at very high standards. We got all our medical and practice protocols down in writing, worked on streamlining certain processes within the clinic, and made sure we were adhering to safety protocols. We communicated closely with the folks at AAHA who were so supportive and helpful in the process. Our staff worked many hours writing and rewriting protocols, discussing aspects of accreditation, putting the finishing touches on our bid, and spiffing up the clinic for The Big Day. The front lobby got a fresh coat of paint (not an AAHA Standard, but wow does it look beautiful!), and we are working on updating our artwork with photos of our pets and patients.

On June 29, 2011 AAHA Accreditation Day arrived and I’m happy to tell you we passed with flying colors! We are so proud to display the red and white AAHA logo throughout the clinic, on our brochures, and in our marketing materials. It’s our promise to you and your pets that we are working hard to bring you the best in medical and surgical care for your pet. It’s a promise that we care and will continue to improve. It’s a promise that we will keep.

Please take some time to check out www.healthypet.com – a website run by AAHA and dedicated to providing you with accurate information on health care for your furry family member. It’s a very useful site to look up info on different conditions and diseases, as well as help finding AAHA-accredited clinics should you ever move from the area.

Please let us know if you have questions about AAHA, or any PGPH-related info. Thanks for stopping by the blog again this week. TTYL.

~ Dr. Julie Hansen
Associate Veterinarian/ Assistant Medical Director

I’ve been practicing now for about 10 years, and although the knowledge and abilities of veterinarians have increased exponentially during that time, a recent study shows that despite our advances and new information, veterinary visits are declining! This even in the face of a 3-5% increase in ownership of dogs and cats –  we are seeing less of them in our veterinary hospitals. The study, conducted by Bayer Animal Health, looked at veterinary usage in the United States and how it has changed over the last decade. This emboldens us in the veterinary industry to do a better job to inform and educate.

So that’s today’s topic: why annual examinations (or even twice-annual exams!) are a good idea for you and your pet … OK, mostly for your pet, but we like to see you, too.

Spot can’t speak
As you can imagine, people who work in the veterinary industry have a special challenge that people in the human health world usually don’t have: our patients can’t talk! They can’t verbalize things like, “Gee, Doc – I’ve been feeling a little run down lately. Sure, I go about my business as usual during the day, but overall I feel more tired. And sometimes a little achey.” Think about how you might act if those were your symptoms. Perhaps your coworkers or family members would have no idea there was anything wrong with you, unless you told them.

Same is true for our pets – if there is something wrong, especially in an early stage, they may not act any different. If your pet is a feline, they are especially adept at hiding how they feel about things.

One of the problems with these decreasing veterinary visits is that we are seeing increases in serious diseases in pets, including diabetes, heartworm disease, cancer, obesity, arthritis, dental disease, ear infections, fleas and ticks, and internal parasites. Many of those diseases are easily preventable with regular veterinary care.

Check-ups
An exam once or twice a year can help identify problems before they start to make your dog or cat feel sick. What are we looking for during the physical exam? Basically anything that looks, sounds, feels, or smells abnormal. Sometimes these changes are subtle and not easily detectable by you during your normal interactions with your pet.

Those annual exams also let us inform you of the best preventive care for your pet. For instance, discussing dental care early and often can help improve your awareness of the fact that dental disease is present in 70-80% of our patients over age 3. We can help you learn how to brush teeth, discuss the best dental care products, and educate you on how early intervention and regular dental cleanings at the clinic can extend your pet’s life up to two years! Proper dental care and prevention can also help to limit the risk of costly and more painful procedures later.

We can talk about how to get your pet to shed some unwanted pounds (obesity is our #1 health-related preventable issue at the moment). Even better, we can talk about keeping your pet at his/her current healthy weight, and stop the obesity epidemic before it starts! Another fun fact: dogs and cats with healthy body weights live an average of TWO YEARS longer than their overweight counterparts.

Other topics we address during those annual exams are heartworm prevention, flea and tick prevention, proper vaccinations based on your pet’s risk factors, proper diet/nutrition, care of aging pets, and much more.

Well, what about wellness?
“Wellness” is the buzz-word of the moment, in both the human medical world and the animal medical world. What does it mean, exactly? Wellness is a process, an active process toward health and well being, for both us and our pets.

I think of wellness as being the central principle guiding all of our recommendations and guidelines in veterinary medicine. We are always striving to provide our patients and clients with the tools they need to prevent illness and injury.

A big part of “wellness” is illness prevention, or preventive medicine. There are things out there we know can make your dog or cat sick – infectious diseases like rabies virus, distemper, leptospirosis bacteria and others can be prevented with the appropriate vaccines given at the appropriate times. We have preventive medications to that keep our dogs from becoming infested with heartworm disease, which is potentially fatal.  We have screening tests for early kidney and liver disease. We have knowledge about proper foods and supplements for your pets. But we can only have these conversations when we can examine your pet and chat with you in the clinic.

Work toward wellness at Park Grove Pet Hospital
The people who work at PGPH are dedicated to your pets and to their long-term wellness. We love the work we do, and we love helping keep your pets as healthy as possible. Our motto is, “Pets are family, too!” and we truly believe that. We all have our own furry family members, many of whom come to work with us every day. We celebrate their birthdays, get them Christmas presents, and work hard to keep them healthy. When we recommend a preventive measure (such as vaccines, heartworm or flea/tick prevention, diet, bloodwork, dental care) it’s because we do the same for our own pets.

Our experience, training and continuing education enable us to recommend what’s best for your pet. And we recommend different strategies to reduce the chances of seeing your pet for a preventable illness in the future. We want your pet to be healthy and happy and stay that way into their geriatric years.

We’d love to hear from you! Give us a call at 653-459-9663 or stop by the clinic any time!

~ Dr. Julie Hansen
Associate Veterinarian/Assistant Medical Director