Senior at Seven?
August 30, 2010Eight does not seem old for our pets, but it is old enough for things to start to go wrong with your pet‚Äö√Ñ√¥s health. The risks of age-related diseases like diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, and thyroid or adrenal disorders are much more commonly diagnosed after the age of seven than before that age. And this is true of both dogs and cats. Life expectancy for cats is 11 years for indoor/outdoor cats and 13 years for indoor cats. Life expectancy for dogs is influenced by size — the larger the dog, the shorter the lifespan. Toy and small breed dogs life expectancy is 13 years, 10 to 12 years for mid-size breeds like Labradors, but only 8 years for a giant breed like a Great Dane. Many individuals may extend their lives well beyond these limits, but, as a colleague of mine tells her clients, ‚Äö√Ñ√∫Every year after 10 is a gift.‚Äö√Ñ√π Our best aid in deferring the inevitable loss of our pets is to begin to monitor their health at age 7, before the risks of illness begin to increase dramatically. Important baseline information should be gathered at that time, and then followed once or twice yearly from that point forward. A physical examination needs to be supplemented with either or both urine and blood tests to discover problems that I cannot see with my eyes, feel with my hands, or hear with my stethoscope. Kidney, liver, adrenal and thyroid diseases all fall into this large category, and the patterns of disease vary between cats and dogs. Over the next several weeks, we‚Äö√Ñ√¥ll talk about these conditions and the need to diagnose and monitor them with special tests.