Author: Dr. Clarissa G. Noureddine, DVM, MS, MS
Did you get to attend our 5th Annual Puppy Care Fair this past Tuesday evening? If so, thank you for coming out! We had a wonderful evening filled with lots of puppy information and puppy fun. We’d like to give a big thank you to Virbac for sponsoring our event and providing refreshments, education, and product support. We also want to thank Dr. Conlon from Idexx, Emily from Boehringer Ingelheim, Bert from Hill’s Science Diet, Marcia Martin with Marcia’s Best Dogs, and HomeAgain Microchips (Merck) for helping us to educate our pet owners and/or offering raffle donations.
We always enjoy our Puppy Care Fair here at Lawndale Veterinary Hospital. Of course, having lots of puppies in the building at one time is always a ton of fun! But it’s also a great opportunity to give our puppy owners helpful information in a relaxed and casual environment.
Our very own Lawndale team members Robin and Hannah helped to review puppy tips focusing on safety (next week is National Poison Prevention week), puppy needs, and microchips. HomeAgain kindly provided a free microchip for our puppy night raffle. All puppy owners who bring their new puppy to Lawndale Veterinary Hospital receive puppy information kits that also go over these topics (and more). If you are curious about the types of information that we want puppy owners to know about, please visit our ‘Paws to Protect: Puppies’ section on our website.
Dr. Conlon with Idexx focused on the topic of presurgical labwork. Having labwork performed prior to surgery helps us understand if the animal is a safe anesthetic candidate. It can also help us to identify underlying medical conditions that may not have caused any symptoms yet (Did you read last week’s blog on the case of Shakira- a puppy with a portosystemic shunt?).
At Lawndale Veterinary Hospital, we recommend that all dogs receive year-round heartworm, flea, tick, and intestinal parasite protection. Kelly from Virbac talked about how Sentinel covers heartworms, intestinal parasites, and keeps adult fleas from laying eggs that will develop. Emily from Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) spoke about an oral adult flea and tick prevention called Nexgard. Virbac and BI also generously provided Sentinel and Nexgard for our raffle!
We also recommend that a high quality puppy food be fed to puppies until about one year of age for most breeds. Bert with Hill’s Science Diet discussed the nutritional and quality benefits of feeding Hill’s puppy food. Hill’s Science Diet also offered a 6 month supply of Science Diet puppy food for our raffle!
All of our attendees had an opportunity to tour the clinic and view our surgical suite. Dr. Crawford, Hannah, and Robin showed people around and helped them understand our surgery protocols. Attendees also had opportunities to ask questions to gain more insight into how we strive to give all of our patients top-notch veterinary care. Everyone that attended will receive a discount on their puppy’s spay or neuter procedure.
The puppies who attended gained some ‘socialization’ time – which is very important for puppies! Their owners had an opportunity to interact with Marcia Martin, dog trainer and owner of Marcia’s Best Dogs. Marcia is fantastic with dog training, and she even took some time to give hands on puppy training tips right there on the spot!
All in all it was a great evening filled with puppies, free food (for humans and pets!), fun, and lots of puppy giveaways.
Learn more about puppies by visiting the following links in our ‘Paws to Protect: Puppies’ section: