Pet Wellness Exams in Tampa, FL

At Harbourside Animal Hospital, our Tampa veterinarian Dr. Timothy Hodge is committed to helping your pet live a long, healthy life. Tampa pet wellness care and preventive veterinary medicine is essential to ensuring the health of your pet. Our personalized, attentive services include annual check-ups, spay neuter operations, routine pet vaccinations, and pet dental care.

Protect Your Pet’s Health with Pet Wellness Care

Preventive care starts with an annual pet wellness care exam. During this exam, Dr. Hodge conducts a full physical on your pet as well as diagnostic tests. These tests include blood count, urinalysis, blood chemistry and a parasite screening. Our lab tests are done in-house, and help us to detect a disease or condition before your pet shows symptoms. We will also ensure that your pet is up to date on all pet vaccinations. Many of these vaccines, including rabies and distemper, require annual vaccinations.

Did you know that many serious illnesses in pets are linked to poor dental hygiene? Just like in humans, plaque and tartar can build up along the gum line in your pet’s mouth, leading to infections and gingivitis. Without proper treatment, a gum infection can easily spread to the bloodstream and affect internal organs. Our animal hospital's pet dentist provides routine dental cleanings to remove plaque and tartar build-up and polish teeth.

If you have a new puppy or kitten in your family, we encourage you to bring them in for our young animal well care program. We will begin your puppy or kitten on a pet vaccination series that he or she will need to receive every three to four weeks, from the ages of eight weeks to sixteen weeks. We will also deworm your pet and place him or her on heartworm prevention medication along with a flea and tick prevention program. We also offer spay neuter operations.

As pets age, a semi-annual wellness exam can help identify and diagnose age-related conditions before they impact your pet’s health. You may notice that your pet begins to slow down a little or no longer hear as well as he or she once did. Inside, your pet's organs are also aging. For senior pet care, a semi-annual wellness exam for senior pets helps our veterinary team to diagnose internal conditions, such as thyroid imbalance, cancer, or heart disease, before these conditions detrimentally affect your pet’s health.

We also offer Tampa pet holistic care services. Our goal with pet holistic care is to provide complementary treatments that enhance your pet’s overall wellness. For example, many pets develop arthritis as they age, and struggle to jump, run and move like they once did. Pet acupuncture treatments are a safe and natural way to relieve this pain, along with pain from past traumas and injuries. In addition to pet acupuncture, simple dietary changes, like the inclusion of fish oil supplements, can help pets stay active well into their golden years.

If your dog or cat is overweight, nutrition counseling and a prescription diet can help your pet get healthy. Just like in humans, excess weight gain strains a pet’s joints and damages the internal organs. While there are a large variety of pet foods on the market, many contain fillers, additives and preservatives that can contribute to weight gain. Our nutrition counseling can help you find the right diet for your pet.

In addition to the preventative care programs, Harbourside Animal Hospital also provides pet microchipping services. Microchipping is a quick, painless way to increase the chances that your dog or cat will be returned to you should he or she get out. We also offer health certificates and early morning admissions. For pet owners with busy schedules, rather than having to schedule an appointment at a specific time during the day, we allow pets to be admitted to our facility, receive the necessary services or treatments, and keep them until they can be picked up by their owners later on.

Call us at (813)-229-3322 to find out more about Pet Wellness Care.