Medical & dental
Medical and dental care, for the ninety percent of health that isn't obvious.
Bloodwork and full diagnostics run in this building. Dental disease caught before it costs a tooth. And, when it's time, an end-of-life conversation had honestly, not avoided.
Chapter 01
What we can run in house, and when we refer out
A medical visit here starts with a full physical exam, not a glance and a guess: eyes, ears, skin, the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, a neurological check, the gut, the skeleton. That exam is how something quiet gets caught before it becomes something loud.
For what a physical exam can't tell us, we run blood and urine testing right here for kidney, liver, thyroid and adrenal function, so most of what your pet needs is answered in one visit. When the picture calls for more than we can see from bloodwork and a physical alone, an ultrasound, an endoscopy or a biopsy, we refer out to a specialist rather than guess past what our own equipment can confirm.
A grey tabby cat held gently by a staff member in a purple scrub top during an exam at Best Friends Veterinary Care
The eighty percent number
The American Veterinary Dental Society puts it plainly: over eighty percent of dogs and seventy percent of cats show dental disease by age three. That's not a scare number, it's just what a mouth looks like by then if nobody has checked it, and it's why we recommend an annual dental exam even when your pet shows no symptoms at all.
Dental disease doesn't announce itself early. It builds under the gumline long before a dog stops eating or a cat starts drooling, which is exactly why the exam matters most in the years before anything looks wrong.
Chapter 03
What dental disease looks like before it hurts
Tartar buildup along the gumline is usually the first visible sign, followed by gums that are red, swollen or bleed when touched. Bad breath and drooling often come next, and they're worth mentioning at a visit even if nothing else seems different.
Further along, you might notice changes in eating, facial swelling, a loose tooth, or a pet that seems more tired than usual. Any one of those on its own is worth a call. Dental disease that's been left alone long enough to cause pain is harder, and more expensive, to treat than the same problem caught a year earlier.
The cleaning itself
A dental cleaning here uses ultrasonic veterinary dental equipment to break up tartar above and below the gumline, the part a toothbrush at home can't reach. After the scale, we polish the teeth smooth and apply fluoride, the same order a cleaning would follow for a person.
Therapeutic laser is applied to the gum tissue after every dental procedure as standard, not an add-on we offer separately. It's part of how the cleaning ends here, on every pet, every time.
When it is time
Most clinics don't put this on a webpage. We think a family deciding whether it's time deserves to know what actually happens before they're standing in the room. Palliative care is always discussed first, so this is never the only option on the table if it isn't yet the right one.
When it is time, the procedure itself is quiet and comfortable. An injectable sedative, a combination of pain medication, a muscle relaxant, something for anxiety, and an anesthetic, is given first, so your pet is settled before anything else happens. You can stay in the room or step out. Either one is entirely your choice, and neither is the wrong one.
Dr. Vercande performs the injection herself once your pet is sedated. Afterward, you can choose general or private cremation, or take your pet home for burial. There's no version of this we'll rush you through.
Best Friends, Free parking at the clinic. Visa, Mastercard, Discover, cash and personal check. Call (319) 341-7111.