The Vet Recommends

Tips for doing right by your pet

By Karl Klockars | Oct. 21, 2023

Your humble author is in year nine of being a cat dad to our little tortie-tabby meatball, Aoife T. Bavarois Dunlop-Klockars, and I’ve played caretaker to a variety of other family cats, dogs, birds, fish, and even a rabbit. (Next? Hopefully sheep!)

But no matter how many years of pet parenthood you have under your belt—or how many furry friends have joined your family—no one comes fully equipped with all the information they need to know about being a responsible pet owner. Every pet, and by proxy, every pet owner, is different.

So we checked in with a couple of local veterinarians—Michelle DeGraw, LVT at Kalkaska Animal Hospital and Tony Loomis, LVT at Elk Rapids Animal Hospital—for their takes on everything it takes to care for an animal. We’ll tackle advances in pet care technology, the value of pet insurance, and what might be the best pet for a child.

Back to Basics

Caring for a pet starts with the basics, so what are the most important things that pet parents need to know first?

“[Feed them] proper food, and the proper amount of food,” DeGraw says. (Ask your vet for how much your pet should be getting for healthy growth and weight.) “Make sure that they get daily exercise, and grooming—every pet needs to be groomed one way or another,” she says.

Both vets tell us that spaying and neutering remains as vital as ever. The Humane Society of the United States notes that spaying and neutering leads to longer lifespans (most notably 62 percent longer for male cats and 26 percent longer for female dogs), curbs issues like urine marking, and reduces or eliminates the risk of reproductive cancers and other fatal illnesses.

Furthermore, a study from the University of Florida found U.S. veterinarians performed 2.7 million fewer spay and neuter surgeries in 2020 and 2021 than they had in 2019. Experts warn even those two years of decline could lead to millions more pets on the streets and in shelters over the coming years. The bottom line: Don’t delay the spay (or neuter).

Socialization and consistent training is another important aspect for pets, especially dogs. “Everybody needs to give them the same commands in order to train them. Spend time with them. You need to take them out to meet other dogs and people so they’re not afraid of them,” DeGraw says.

Training can apply to cats, too. “You can teach a cat to do tricks, you can train a cat to be walked on a leash. Cats are extremely smart. If you give them the time and you work with them like you do a dog, you can train a cat to do what a dog can do … you just need a lot of patience.”

Preventing Problems

Eliminating health issues before they can start is one of the best ways to keep your pet happy and healthy.

“Preventative care is key,” Loomis says. “It’s way easier, less expensive, less painful for the pets to do preventative care than it is to treat it once they get something. Just like us, they have to get their vaccines every year or three years depending on the vaccines. There’s just so many different diseases out there, and some of them are life threatening, especially for young dogs and cats.”

DeGraw agrees that pet vaccination is hugely important and notes that new pet parents have to be vigilant about making sure that all the doses are delivered.

“So many times people will get their dog from a breeder and [the seller] will say ‘the puppy is up to date on its shots right now,’ and people will think the animal is okay,” she says. “Next thing we know, it’s a month or two later, they haven’t got the next series of shots to finish them out, and the dog is in fighting for its life because it has parvo. I can’t tell you how many times I hear that ‘they’re up to date’ and you look at the records; they’ve only had two shots and they really need four.”

If you haven’t been a pet owner for a while and are considering a new animal addition to the family, you’ll be happy to hear that pet care technology and medication have made amazing advancements in the last decade or two.

“I’ve been doing this for [nearly] 20 years—it is night and day different,” Loomis says. “We have medications, we have protocols for every condition you can imagine. Anesthetic monitoring is the biggest difference from then to now. We have everything—we have ECG, we have a pulse oximeter, we have a capnograph, we have many different temperature warning devices … the works. You name it, we can keep an eye on it.”

DeGraw agrees, saying, “Seriously, all the way across the board, it is amazing what we can do nowadays. Years ago, if a dog got parvo, it was a death sentence. Even heartworm—death sentence. Nowadays we can actually treat them to make them better with parvo. We can support the animal while the virus is going through the body … and help keep enough energy in the body for the body to heal itself,” she says, noting that on the very day of our interview they were receiving new blood testing machines at the office.

“It’s amazing what we can test and find in your blood work, urinalysis, and even poop samples,” she adds. “It’s extremely important, whether you’re a cat or a dog, having a stool sample to see if they have intestinal parasites. Prevention is the key.”

Neat and Tidy

Grooming is also important to a pet’s health as a form of preventative care.

“Brushing your dog’s teeth or your cat’s teeth; it just changes their lives,” Loomis says. “I know it’s a pain in the butt, but it really does help prevent a lot of problems.” Loomis also recommends trimming your pet’s nails (cats and dogs alike) and cleaning out the ears of pups who swim regularly.

Grooming dogs is key for another big reason, DeGraw explains. “[People] don’t realize that they should be grooming [their animal] at six, eight weeks of age … so they get used to being handled in that way. When they start matting up really bad, that’s when people want to start grooming them. You haven’t taught them and now you’re doing something painful.”

At that point, she says, pets can be so stressed and unhappy about the grooming experience that they have to be anesthetized in order to be groomed, adding dollars to your bill and stress to your shoulders. “It all could be avoided if they just start [grooming] when they get the puppy,” DeGraw concludes.

Springing for Insurance

If all of that care sounds expensive, you’re not wrong. For a healthy cat, the ASPCA estimates you can plan to spend around $643 each year (after your initial adoption, spay/neuter, and vaccination costs). For dogs, the number nearly doubles, with Rover putting the annual figure at $1,188. And that’s not factoring in major medical emergencies or surgeries, which can run in the $500-$5,000 range.

Does pet insurance help mitigate some of those costs? The vets say yes, with some caveats.

Loomis actually spent five years with Nationwide Pet Insurance, so he has perspective from both inside and outside of insurance providers. “It’s got its place, for sure. With the cost of pet care in the world we now live in, paying a monthly $40 fee for the ‘just in case’—I would strongly recommend it,” he says.

“The one thing that is a little sneaky about them is that they do [include] pre-existing conditions,” he adds. “All of [the insurance providers] do. So if you have a dog that had an allergy when it was a puppy, once they get the records, it will be excluded from all allergy things for its entire life.”

DeGraw has a bit more of a measured view, noting that years ago, pet insurance was definitely not worth it. “There were just too many variables. If you had a full breed dog, you had to pay more than a mixed breed dog. It was very, very difficult,” she says. “It is getting better. Is it worth it for some animals? Yes. Certain breeds, yes. But for your little mixed-breed that is generally a healthy breed, I don’t know if it’s really that worth it.”

Adding to the Family

Last but not least, we asked what the best animal for a young child that hasn’t owned a pet yet, as that can be one of the biggest adjustments and challenges for bringing a furry friend into your home.

On Team Cat, we have Dr. Loomis.

“I think it depends on the kid … but I think a cat. I have two little kids, and I have cats and I have dogs, and I just find that the cat has more interaction with the kids. And it’s just easier depending on the size of the dog. An older kid is better for a dog, but for younger kids, I think cats are pretty easy, and they’re more involved than reptiles or guinea pigs or hamsters.”

Dr. DeGraw is more on Team Whatever, as long as you train your kids to be good pet owners.

“Cats and dogs have a tendency to [be] loving and they want to cuddle, and kids can do that. They can pick it up, put it down, they can do more with a cat or dog as opposed to, you know, a goldfish,” she says. “But you want to start your kids out really young, and train them how to treat the animal [well]. We have kids around here, and we teach them all that you have to be nice to the animals. It teaches them to be a good person, because if you’re good to an animal, then you know how to be good to other people.”