How to Give Your Pet a Monthly Home Exam

Preventative maintenance and keeping your pet healthy starts with you. Knowing how to perform a simple monthly home exam and the red flags to look for can help minimize vet visits—as well as let you know if one is necessary. Here are some things to look for.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Check your pet’s weight; it should remain stable (within a few pounds) from month to month. If the feeding schedule stays consistent and you notice that your pet “looks too skinny” or “looks too fat” it is probably a good idea to schedule a vet exam.
2. Brush your pet’s fur (or part with your fingers) in the opposite direction of growth to check the skin for redness or irritation. A black, crusty residue could be a sign of fleas.
3. Check your pet's coat, ears, eyes and paws for burrs, ticks and any other foreign objects that might be trapped. If your pet spends a lot of time outdoors, it's a good idea to do it more often.
4. Run your hands all over your pet’s skin to feel for lumps, bumps or growths. If you come across a lump or growth, check for more. Notice whether it is hard or soft and if it causes the pet pain when you touch it. It could be a number of things: bug bite, fatty tissue, wart, cyst, skin sore, callous, foreign object stuck under the skin or a malignant or benign tumor. Report any lumps, bumps or growths to your vet.
5. Use gentle pressure to feel around the base of your pet’s jaw, in front of the shoulder blades, behind the "elbows" of the front and back legs, and where the thighs meet the abdomen. Note if there is anything prominent or if there appears to be lymph node pain.
6. Observe your pet’s nose to check for roughness, peeling, pigmentation changes or unusual discharge.
7. Check the ears for redness and inflammation. Look for hair loss around the ears, odor, abnormal discharge, crusting and dark brown or black debris. Also observe if your dog winces when the ear is touched. These are all common signs of ear infection or ear mites.
8. Pull your pet’s top eyelid back. If the white of the eye appears yellow or orange, or if it looks pink and irritated (a sign of conjunctivitis), consult your vet.
9. Examine your pet’s teeth for tartar and the gum line for growths. Tartar is normally a yellow-brown layer on the teeth near the gum line.

Tips & Warnings

• A dry nose does not necessarily mean illness. Dogs' and cats' noses may be warm and dry one minute, and wet and cool the next; this is normal.
• To help you remember what areas of your pet to examine, think of the words to the children's song: "eyes and ears and mouth and nose, head, shoulders, knees and toes."