FAQs

According to the AVMA’s Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics, veterinarians must have an up to date Veterinarian-Client-Patient Relationship (VCPR) before filling or refilling any medications. Dispensing medication without this relationship is illegal.

Article on VCPR from the American Animal Hospital Association

VCPR FAQ from the American Veterinary Medical Association

Doctors prescribe anxiety and sedation medications like gabapentin or trazodone for pets who are anxious when going to the vet. Anxiety may be seen in a variety of ways, such as shaking, peeing, high temperature, and aggression. Anxiety medications typically do not react with other medications and make the vet experience easier on you, your pet, and our hospital. If you are interested in other ways of making the vet less stressful, follow the link for

Removing fear and anxiety from vet visits at PreventiveVet.com (DOGS).         Removing fear and anxiety from vet visits at PreventiveVet.com (CATS).

One important tip is to be calm yourself. Your pet knows when you are stressed and will become anxious if you are.

Why is the vet stressful? 

According to the AVMA’s Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics, “Veterinary clinics are noisy, and animals’ hearing is at least four times as sensitive as people’s, she said. Other stressors for animals include being outside their territory, encountering other animals and new smells, and being handling by strangers… Canine or feline pheromones in collars, sprays, or diffusers can be helpful. In advance of a visit, stressed animals can be given medications such as gabapentin, diazepam, or trazodone.“

Article on Animal Handling from the American Veterinary Medical Association

“A dog may appear healthy on the outside, but on the inside, heartworms may be living and thriving. If a heartworm-positive dog is not tested before starting a preventive, the dog will remain infected with adult heartworms until it gets sick enough to show symptoms. Heartworm preventives do not kill adult heartworms. Also, giving a heartworm preventive to a dog infected with adult heartworms may be harmful or deadly. If microfilariae are in the dog’s bloodstream, the preventive may cause the microfilariae to suddenly die, triggering a shock-like reaction and possibly death.”

 

 

FDA’s article: “Keep the Worms Out of Your Pet’s Heart! The Facts about Heartworm Disease”

 

 

“And even if you’ve kept your dog on a steady regimen of heartworm prevention medication, yearly testing for the parasites is still recommended. No drug is 100% effective, and you want to make sure the drug is working.”

FDA’s Article: “An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure: Protect Your Pet from Heartworms Year-Round” 

You can order prescriptions from our online pharmacy, VetSource. You may also use other online pharmacies, such as chewy.com or 1-800petmeds. Simply input our information as your vet clinic and they will send us an electronic message where we can approve the medication online. You can also order medication on our online store!

Our Online Store: VetSource.com

A microchip is about the size of a grain of rice and can only emit it’s identification number. They are not able to track or locate animals, but they can help people who have found your lost pet.

Registering the microchip number connects it to your phone number and/or address. With registration, places who scan the microchip and have access to the lookup registry, such as shelters and vets, can contact you with the information you have registered. Without registration, your pet’s microchip may not help.

Microchip registration is done online and may be free or paid depending on the website used. If you change numbers or addresses you will need to update or re-register your information online. 

We do offer microchipping here! We inject the microchip under the skin and give you it’s unique code for you to register online. We do not register microchips here.

For more information on Microchips please follow this link to AVMA’s page on microchipping: “Microchips reunite pets with families”

To check if your pet’s microchip is registered please use the Microchip Registry Lookup.

Click Here to reach our page containing handouts on dentals, ear cleanings, and more!

We are booked out for appointments. We try to see sick patients as soon as possible, which is usually in one to two weeks. For all general wellness and vaccine visits we wish to book out one month in advance, so we can save closer time slots for sick patients. Thank you for your patience and support!

Why is Peninsula Pet Hospital So Busy?

We do accept volunteers on a limited basis from clients who are interested about going into animal related fields. Please send us an email about what you are interested in learning/observing to penpethospital@gmail.com with the subject line: Volunteer_LastName_FirstName

If you are interested in working here, please visit our Careers Page.