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Optimizing Health

What does this mean? 

Optimizing health can take many forms. One pillar of health is diet (see our diet consult page). Other pillars include appropriate exercise; clean filtered or spring water; and a clean environment. Preventive health in our eyes includes basics like yearly heartworm and Lyme disease screening, but also appropriate chiropractic care as well as appropriate nail trimming to enable a natural, resilient stance and prevent toe and stifle/knee pain. There are also screening tests we do to optimize health, and yearly treatments to decrease the risk of disease in old age. 

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And finally, optimizing your own health, especially your mental and emotional health, is one of the best things you can do for your pet!

What services do you offer to
maximize health? 

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- Chiropractic - this varies from monthly to yearly depending on the individual patient. Dogs at high risk due to breed, such as dachshunds, or due to an individual combination of delicacy and high activity, such as some toy breed patients, often come in every 3 months. Individuals who have suffered from disc disease or spinal trauma also benefit from frequent gentle chiropractic care. Athletes benefit from visits every 1-3 months. Other healthy dogs may only get checked and adjusted yearly, when distortions in their spines from hard play or the occasional slip can be found and addressed before becoming more serious spinal arthritis or disc disease. [move this to chiropractic page?Summarize to : Chiropractic every 1-12 months benefits most dogs, whose active lifestyles indoors and outdoors make them prone to spinal distortion. Early chiropractic care can prevent spinal arthritis, spondylosis, and disc disease.]

- Emotion Code or Luo Acupuncture: These are two techniques to address the emotional energies that can become displaced to our dogs. Regular care for the emotional stresses of our pets, especially those who come to comfort us all the time, may be a crucial step for cancer prevention

- Nail trims - Long nails not only contribute to twisted and arthritic toes, which I suspect we have all seen in dogs, but also alter a dog's stance out of an optimal, balanced pose into one that carries chronic stress in the connective tissue. Judith Shoemaker, DVM, has argued persuasively that this pose may contribute to the degeneration of dog cruciate ligaments that occurs before cruciate injuries actually happen. Appropriate nail trims are a great investment in your dog's health. 

- Energetic body screen - our reiki practitioner Dee Dee is quite sensitive to discomfort in the body [explain? Refer to reiki page?]

- Preventive labwork: 

     - Vitamin D - explain benefits

     - Glyphosate screening in the urine - explain

     - Heavy metal screening using hair analysis 

     - DNA testing for known diseases

     - Routine blood chemistry, CBC, and thyroid screening in patients 8-9 years of age and older

- Ultrasound evaluation to screen for splenic masses breeds prone to them

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