Health Maintenance Services
Vaccines
Simply stated, it is much better and less expensive to prevent disease than to cure it.
Vaccinations are not only safe and effective; they are an important and fundamental piece of your pet’s preventative healthcare. Advances in veterinary immunology have made diseases that once were relatively common and fatal to pets easily preventable.
There are also vaccines—such as for rabies and other infectious diseases—that help protect your family from very dangerous and difficult to treat illnesses. Additionally, with each passing year, veterinary science is improving on existent vaccines as well as increasing our ability to prevent an even wider array of infectious diseases.
Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital’s vaccination protocol is tailored to American Veterinary Medical Association guidelines, the lifestyle of your pet, as well as to the diseases he or she is most likely to encounter in our region of the country. In addition to vaccines for diseases such as rabies and distemper we may also recommend yearly vaccinations for Bordetella and Lyme for dogs and the vaccine for feline leukemia for cats.
Veterinary Cancer Care
A diagnosis of cancer can be frightening. However, most pets respond extremely well to cancer treatments, which include surgical tumor removal, radiation and chemotherapy. Additionally, Pets do not experience the same side effects from chemotherapy that humans do, and often go on to lead healthy lives long after their cancer is gone.
Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital offers the latest in veterinary cancer treatments, which includes diagnostics, surgical excision, chemotherapy, and supportive therapies. If necessary, we can also refer you to a veterinary oncology specialist for specialized surgeries and radiation therapies.
Our goal is to provide your pet with the best quality of life for as long as possible.
Microchip Lost Pet ID by HomeAgain
Each year, millions of pets go missing and many don’t make it back home. Microchipping your pet is the safest and most effective way to ensure your pet can find its way back to you. As but one example, during a move one of our staff members lost a beloved cat, Bella, after its carrier opened accidentally near her new home in unfamiliar territory. Despite trying everything to find Bella, nothing worked.
However, after four months Bella was discovered in a garage and taken to a veterinary office. The clinic quickly scanned Bella for a microchip, which revealed the Bella’s identity. After a four month ordeal, Bella is home, healthy and happy, and this is only one of many stories of how effective lost pet microchip IDs can be.
About the size of a grain of rice, identification microchips are encoded with your pet’s vital information and implanted beneath the skin, usually between the shoulder blades. Veterinary hospitals and animal shelters across the country and around the world are equipped with special scanners capable of reading these microchips.
Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital uses the HomeAgain microchip system. HomeAgain provides a number of very useful services to pet owners such as their National Pet Recovery Database, Lost Pet Specialists, Rapid Lost Pet Alerts, Lost Pet Medical Insurance, Travel Assistance for Found Pets, and more.
Behavior Management & Nutritional Counseling
Behavior Management
Behavior problems are the number one reason that owners give up a pet. Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital offers behavior management for many of your pet’s issues including inappropriate urination or defecation, aggression, separation anxiety, inappropriate chewing and barking, scratching, digging, and spraying.
Our veterinarians will work closely with you to understand the source of these behavior issues and in developing a specific plan to help eliminate your pet’s unwanted behavior. Oftentimes, the behavior problem, such as inappropriate voiding, can be linked to a medical issue (cystitis, bladder stones, kidney disease, etc.) and can be treated medically. For other behavior issues, the treatment plan often includes behavior modification and may include medication-assisted training. If our veterinarians and technical staff members cannot help with your pet’s behavior problem, we can refer you to a board-certified animal behaviorist.
We are also very proud to offer our clients Puppy Kindergarten and Level 1 training classes with our associate Sue Oakes of Oakes K9 Training. Sue has more than 30 years of dog training experience and is a Certified Dog Trainer by the International Association of Canine Professionals.
Nutritional Counseling
One of the key factors contributing to the improved health and longevity of companion animals is our expanded knowledge on the important role that proper nutrition plays in overall health. During your pet’s comprehensive physical examination we evaluate his or her body condition and give recommendations based on what we see. However, some pets with nutritional issues or chronic conditions such as diabetes require a little bit more intervention, which may include specialized foods, feeding strategies and even prescription diets.
Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital has trained staff available to help you with your pet’s nutritional challenges. We also have a diverse inventory of prescription foods and high-quality nutritional products. If your pet requires a prescription diet we do not carry, we can easily order it for you. We can also offer advice and provide information about diets that benefit specific medical conditions such as liver disease, bladder and kidney stones, renal failure, food allergies, diabetes and other conditions.
Physical Rehabilitation
We truly believe that providing your pet with the best that modern veterinary medicine has to offer is our mission. This means that we also must support you and your pet during recovery from surgery or injury as well as managing chronic orthopedic and neurologic conditions.
Medications can help reduce pain and inflammation and treat a number of conditions and our diagnostic resources can help monitor your pet’s recovery from surgery or an injury, but they must be integrated with an effective rehabilitation program. This is why Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital offers physical therapy.
The Benefits of Physical Therapy
The goal of physical rehabilitation is to decrease pain, speed recovery, and maximize overall health and wellbeing. This means if your pet suffers from an orthopedic or neurologic condition, is undergoing surgery, recovering from injury, or simply requires health and wellness work, he or she would benefit from our rehabilitation program.
The benefits include:
- Faster healing and shorter recovery time after surgery
- Less pain
- Muscular strength and flexibility
- Increased joint range of motion
- Improved muscular and cardiovascular endurance
- Maximized athletic potential and performance.
- Improved management of chronic disease
- Enhanced quality of life
- And in some cases, physical therapy can help avoid surgery and reduce the risk of certain injuries and orthopedic and neurological conditions.
Stem Cell Therapy
Stem cell therapy is a new and highly innovative treatment to help control chronic pain and improve the quality of life for pets with osteoarthritic conditions such as arthritis, tendon and ligament injuries, and immune mediate arthritis. While osteoarthritic conditions are rather difficult to treat, stem cell therapy at Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital offers an effective alternative for our clients' pets that have not tolerated or responded well to medication, are not a good surgical candidate, require long-term pain management, and/or for whom a natural therapy is a preferred method of treatment.
How It Works
Your veterinarian at Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital will extract a small amount of fat from your pet’s body, which is then submitted to Vet-Stem, a lab that specializes in extracting and processing adult stem cells.
Once the stem cells have been processed they are returned to our hospital where your veterinarian will inject them into the affected area(s) of your pet. Because these cells are able to self-differentiate into many cell types as they develop—such as bone, cartilage, nerve and muscle—they can replace and boost the growth of healthy cells.
Pocket Pets
Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital also offers a range of wellness services to pocket pets such as rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs, ferrets, mice, gerbils, and other small mammals. These animals’ healthcare needs are often quite unique and require a veterinary practice with the experience and expertise to ensure they live long, healthy and happy lives.
In the wild, most small mammals have developed strategies to conceal illness or injuries as a survival technique to avoid predators. As a result, their medical problems often go unnoticed for too long. By the time the owner recognizes that there is a problem with his or her pocket pet, the condition is often extremely serious.
This is why we strongly recommend regular physical examinations to check for health problems as well as annual monitoring to check for nutritional and husbandry-related conditions. With regular veterinary medical examinations—two per year is recommended—problems are often diagnosed before they become serious medical conditions.
After acquiring your new pocket pet, a complete veterinary examination is also strongly recommended. This exam includes a thorough physical examination, nutritional consultation, and disease screening and laboratory testing if necessary.
End of Life Care
Even the healthiest of pets reach that time where we must find a way to say goodbye to them. We understand that this is a painful and difficult experience for our clients and is one that we all have been through in our own lives. It is our goal to help ease this time of life for both our patients and clients.
We will help on the decision making process and provide euthanasia services designed to ensure the comfort and dignity of your pet. These services include caring for the remains as directed by our clients and grief counseling from your veterinarian as well as referral to a grief specialist, if necessary.
Our Pharmacy & Pet Supplies
Our Pharmacy
In numerous acute or chronic conditions, medication is required to cure or alleviate symptoms. At Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital we believe that timely and convenient access to these medications is an important aspect of caring for your pet. For this reason, we maintain a comprehensive pharmacy.
Not only does our pharmacy mean you don't have to wait for important medicines for your pet, but there is a direct line of communication between the examination room and the pharmacy. Each medication becomes part of your pet’s medical record, which reduces the chance for errors and enhances our ability to monitor its use and the outcome for your pet.
Refills are easy too. Simply give us a call and we can have them ready at your next visit.
Pet Supply Store
With so many pet care products on the market, it can be difficult to know which ones are best for your pet. Additionally, marketing and sales methods can be deceptive so we have taken some of the guess work out by researching the ones we think are best and then including them in our health products store here at Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital.
These include over-the-counter flea and tick control products, prescription pet foods, grooming aids, dental care products, and more. If you don’t see something in our store or would like to suggest a product, we are able to special order a wide range of products for our clients.
Travel Services
If you like to travel with your pet to other countries or states, you may need a national or international health certificate. These certificates document the health of your pet and certify that he or she has been properly vaccinated. If you do not have this form of documentation it is very likely your pet could be quarantined for an extended period of time or unable to travel.
Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital is authorized and well versed in handling the documentation required for traveling with your pet.
Generally, these certificates are only valid for a certain period of time, must be filled out within a specific timeframe prior to when you travel, and require different forms depending on your destination. We encourage you to contact your airline to find out the specific documentation that is required, but we can guide you through the process.
We can also help you understand what you need and advise you on how to safely travel with your pet by air, car, etc.