The Importance of Dog Lab Work
Hannah Grant, DVM
Brunswick Veterinary Hospital
Why might my dog need lab work?
So there's many reasons why our canine patients or pets might need some lab work done. Depending on what's happening with the patient, if they're otherwise healthy, we might recommend lab work to get a general baseline of their overall health by evaluating overall organ function and immune system status or infectious status. Other reasons why we might want to do some lab work is if we're now seeing some signs of illness that we want to investigate a little bit further to determine where the problem is and what more do we need to do to treat and take care of our patients.
Why are laboratory tests so important for my dog's health?
Lab tests are so important for your dog's health because they give us a lot more information than we can get just by putting our hands on our patients. Lab work can look at overall organ function, so electrolytes, kidney function, liver function, as well as what your white blood cells are doing. Is there any evidence of infection or inflammation or even if there's any evidence of any underlying cancer? Lab tests really allow us to start looking into any issues that might be happening with our patients to direct further diagnostics and further care.
What different types of lab work are there and how are these tests done?
There's many different types of lab tests that can be done on our canine patients. Just to name a couple that we frequently do on our canine patients, urinalysis or a urine test allows us to evaluate for any evidence of urinary tract infection or difficulties concentrating the urine or inappropriate substances in the urine that might have deeper implications for their overall health. We also might routinely do a fecal test to evaluate for any kinds of intestinal parasites that might predispose them to GI upsets such as vomiting and diarrhea. We might also do a complete blood count on these patients where we actually look at the different white blood cell counts and the red blood cell counts to evaluate for signs of inflammation, infection, anemia, things like that. We'll also frequently do what's called a chemistry panel to look at overall organ function, electrolytes, and the overall health of their different body systems. And lastly, depending on what's happening with the individual patient, we might consider what's called cytology or taking a sample either from a mass or even an infected ear and looking at that underneath the microscope to determine what's causing the problem.
Why are routine blood tests important for my dog?
So routine blood tests are very important for your patients for numerous different reasons. For healthy animals, it helps us track and detect any kinds of illnesses early on before they become more progressive so that we can intervene and start treating them early. For patients that maybe have an ongoing illness or something that has been tracked for a while, it allows us to trend their values to see, is this problem getting worse? Do we need to make changes in our treatment plan? And where do we go from here?
What do the chemistries mean on my dog's blood work?
So the different chemistry values on your dog's blood work can give us a little bit of insight into liver health, kidney health, pancreatic health, as well as our electrolyte values and our blood sugar. Just an overall picture of how our patient is doing.
How does a baseline lab test benefit the health of my dog?
So a baseline blood test helps your animals by giving us a general baseline to compare current values to. A good example is that if we have a patient that had come in for routine blood work and we found maybe an abnormal value that was normal for that patient, and then later on we see them come back for an illness, we now have something to compare the lab work when they're ill compared to the lab work when they were healthy to determine whether these values are abnormal for this patient or whether these values are what we expect to find in this particular patient.
Why is early detection and diagnosis of dog illnesses using lab work so important?
So early detection is so important because our patients can't talk to us, our pets can't tell us when they're experiencing any signs of discomfort, and sometimes signs of illnesses may be very subtle and we may not notice for a time. It's very important to do routine lab work because that allows us to start seeing things before our patients start showing obvious signs of illness or discomfort.
Dog Lab Work - FAQs 1
Hannah Grant, DVM
Brunswick Veterinary Hospital
Dr. Grant, how is blood drawn from my dog?
Very similar to how blood is drawn in humans, we actually take a needle and get a sample directly from their veins in one of their four legs. This commonly gives us the sample that we need, and it's very non-invasive for most of our canine patients.
Is the sample collection painful for my dog?
It's no more painful than when we have our own blood drawn because we do actually get poked with a needle to get the sample. But once we have the sample, there's no long-lasting pain in most of our patients.
How is the safety of my dog ensured when getting lab work done?
The safety of our patients is first and foremost in all of our minds. We have highly trained staff who are experienced in gently but safely restraining our patients to ensure that there are no accidents when we're collecting samples.
How soon will I receive my dog's lab results?
How soon you receive results really depends on the type of test that we're running. There are many different types of tests, including some in-house laboratory tests that we might get back the same day, versus some lab tests that we might send out for review to a pathologist, which sometimes can take a few days or even a couple of weeks to get results back on.
Does my senior dog really need lab work done?
I highly recommend that all senior patients get at least routine lab work done. The reason is that our older patients are predisposed to lots of diseases like chronic kidney disease, diabetes, or any types of cancer, too. By having routine lab work done on our senior patients, it allows us for early detection and early intervention of diseases that can develop.
Will my dog need more than one type of lab test?
It depends on what we see with that individual patient. There are some patients where we might see some more concerning signs that might indicate that maybe we go a little bit more above and beyond than we would in a routine lab test or exam.
Will follow-up lab work need to be done on my dog?
Follow-up lab work depends on what we find with the labs that we've done already. Sometimes, in perfectly healthy patients, as long as they're doing well, we'll recheck their lab work annually to make sure that everything still looks good at each annual wellness exam. There are some patients, however, where we might find new or ongoing illnesses that we might want to recheck every couple of months or every several weeks, if need be.
If you still have other questions and you'd like to reach out to us, you can call us directly at (518) 279-0700, or you can email us at [email protected]. But please do reach out, and we'll get back to you as fast as we can. Don't forget to follow us on social media Facebook, Instagram