Veterinarian House Calls | Tips

Hey, guys, My name is Dr. Lehrer here at Heron Lakes Animal Hospital. Today we're talking about house calls. What are some things to expect, how to prepare, and what are some different reasons as to why you would have a house call? So, number one, if your pet, whether it's a cat or a dog, is very nervous when going to the doctor's office, you want to go ahead and consider potentially having a house call. You can check with your normal veterinarian and see if they're willing to offer that particular service to you. If not, there are, I'm sure, veterinarians who do provide that kind of service in your area sometimes. What will happen is when the pets come into the office, there may be some traumatic experiences, and so it may be harder for them to go ahead and get through that experience without it getting worse. They may even be picking up on some pheromones, stress pheromones, and those are kind of like a scent that is taken in through the ear, but you don't necessarily smell it. And if your dog is sensitive to that or their confidence is low when they come into the office, they may pick up on that from other pets. That's why some people will notice. As soon as their dogs walk through the door, they pump the brakes, and that's because they're probably starting to pick up on the stress pheromones. Number two, if your pet is really sick and you have difficulty getting your pet to the office and you are not physically able, that may be one of the different reasons why you might need a house call. Whoops. Watch out for that. The other thing would be, is if you have multiple pets and it's hard for you to get them all in at one time, that might be something else that you'll want to consider in regards to having a house call where maybe the veterinary team can come out to your house and go ahead and take care of all your pets at in one foul swoop. Okay. Now, when going ahead and getting prepared for a house call, number one, you're going to want to obviously know what exactly is it that you want from the veterinarian team. And you're also going to want to communicate that to them when you set up the appointment, not when they get there, because they may need some things either to collect different samples, maybe a test that you thought they might be able to do there that they're not able to do. And so it's very important for you to clearly communicate to them exactly what it is is going on with your pet and what you're hoping to get out of it. Okay, number two, you're going to want to make sure that you have a isolated area where your veterinary team can work with your pet, whether it's on the floor or on a table or some sort of elevated flat surface like a kitchen counter. You'll want to ask them and see what it is will be best for them. When you have pet like a cat, that's going to probably going to be better if you have it set up in maybe like a bathroom or an office, something that's confined because the cats will be able to get away and that's going to prove a little bit challenging. Otherwise you'll be going around and chasing the cat around the house, moving furniture around, rearranging everything. It'll be good exercise, but it'll probably add more stress to your, to your furry family member. Okay. The couple of different things that you can do when preparing your house or your pet is, for example, cats. You can try some catnip that should hopefully get them kind of relaxed and in the mood. Here I think we have some organic catnip and so that's an option. Catnip works in about 50% of cats. Then you have this product over here called Feelaway. Feelaway comes in either a spray or in plugins. And so this is actually, again, you hear the word pheromone. This is something that is going ahead and is supposed to be the equivalent of a pheromone from a lactating female cat that's supposed to have a calming effect. The Adaptil comes again in a spray, but also comes in a collar. And so this is. These are just some different things which are the equivalent to the cat pheromone, but for dogs now. And so this is something that will go ahead and help with the. Call me. Normally what I tell people is there's a 50, 50 shot that this is going to work. If you guys have any questions regarding what else to expect or what else you can do to prepare, just let me know in the comment section. I'll be more than happy to help. Thanks for watching. If you found this helpful, please give us a thumbs up. Subscribe and share.