Preventive Care

• Dental Care
  STEP 1: Bring your pet in for a dental exam. Don't wait for his annual checkup if you suspect a problem.
• Vaccination
  Whether your pet lives indoors or outdoors, creating a clean and healthy environment is important to your pet's health and well-being. Learn how to help your pet feel at home! Welcoming your pet, training your pet, and taking care of your pet's health and vaccinations will help you and your pet live a healthy and happy life together. Be sure to consult your veterinarian for any questions about your pet's needs.
• Veterinary Ophthalmology
  Keratoconjunctivitis sicca (KCS) is the technical term for a condition also known as 'dry eye.' It occurs because of inadequate tear production. Symptoms include a thick, yellowish discharge from the eye.
• Behavioral Counseling
  A common medical condition in older dogs that results from abnormal brain function, causing certain behavior changes such as disorientation, housebreaking problems, and changes in sleeping patterns and interactions with others.
• Nutritional Counseling
  Symptoms are usually diarrhea and weight loss. The parasites can actually suck so much blood that they cause pale gums from anemia, and black and tarry stools. Young puppies can be so severely affected that they die. Infection can be by ingestion of breast milk from an infected mother, by ingestion of infective eggs, or by skin penetration of infective larvae.
• Comprehensive Examination
  Once a year, you should take your pet in for a check-up. This will include a full physical exam, and will include any other services your pet may need. Dr. Kelly Pinkston will check the health of your pet from head to tail, and you will be very happy you came to Help for Animals Clinic for your pets needs.

Illness Treatment

• Parasites Treatment and Control
  Tapeworms are another very common intestinal parasite of dogs and cats. This parasite is different though, in that it requires transmission through an intermediate host, most commonly a flea. Other intermediate hosts can be mice, rats, or rabbits. The dog or cat eats the intermediate host containing the tapeworm egg, and the tapeworm completes its life cycle to develop into an adult in the intestine of the dog or cat. The intermediate host is required, if a pet eats an adult tapeworm or tapeworm segment, it will not cause tapeworms to grow in its intestine.
• Behavioral Disorder Treatment
  Canine distemper is a viral disease that causes a severe and often fatal systemic illness in dogs and their close relatives. Distemper is also fatal in animals such as raccoons, and mustelids including skunks, mink, and ferrets.
• Pain Management
• Vomiting Treatment
• Diarrhea Treatment
• Skin Condition and Allergy Treatment
  An orange-yellow pigment in bile that is a product of red blood cell breakdown; it is normally excreted with the urine or feces, and a buildup in the body can cause jaundice.

Infection Treatment

• Leptospirosis Treatment
  Vaccine which should only be given to animals at increased risk of exposure to a disease, example, leptospirosis in dogs or feline leukemia in cats (see core vaccine).
• Parvovirus Infection Treatment
  Vaccine which should be given to all animals of certain species, example, parvovirus vaccine in dogs or panleukopenia in cats (see noncore vaccine).
• Bacterial and Viral Infection Treatment
  Other causes of the inflammation can be infectious. Septic arthritis is caused by a bacterial or fungal infection. Lyme disease or Ehrlichia infection can also cause arthritis. Auto-immune diseases, or what is now called immune- mediated diseases, such as Lupus can cause swollen, painful, inflamed joints. More rarely, tumors can cause arthritis.

Chronic Condition Treatment

• Arthritis Treatment
  Arthritis is an inflammation of any joint in the body. The inflammation can have many causes. The most common type of arthritis is osteoarthritis which can be due to wear and tear on joints from over use, aging, injury, or from an unstable joint such as which occurs with a ruptured ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in the knee. The chronic form of this disease is called degenerative joint disease (DJD). It is estimated that 20% of dogs older than one year of age have some form of DJD. One study showed that 90% of cats over 12 years of age had evidence of DJD on x-rays.
• Hip Dysplasia Treatment
  Increase the risk of arthritis as extra weight can stress the joints, cause joint pain, and make it harder for your pet to move around comfortably.
• Diabetes Treatment
  Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM): A form of diabetes in which so little insulin is produced that supplemental insulin must be given for the animal to live. Also called Type I diabetes mellitus.
• Vestibular Disease Treatment
• Thyroid Disease Treatment
  Hypothyroidism is the natural deficiency of thyroid hormone and is the most common hormone imbalance of dogs. This deficiency is produced by several different mechanisms. The most common cause (at least 95% of cases) is immune destruction of the thyroid gland. It can also be caused by natural atrophy of the gland, by dietary iodine deficiency, neoplasia (primary or metastatic) of the thyroid gland or (rarely) as a congenital problem. Hypothyroidism is most common in medium to large breeds of dogs that are middle aged (4 to 10 years) but can occur in any dog.
• Heart Disease Treatment
  Heart medications which block certain receptors in the heart called beta receptors. The beta receptors receive signals which generally increase the heart rate. If the heart rate is abnormally fast and uneven, beta blockers will help stabilize the rate and rhythm of contractions.
• Kidney Disease Treatment
  The disease of hyperthyroidism can actually help the kidneys. If the cat has both kidney disease and hyperthyroidism, it is not a candidate for radioactive iodine and the dose of Tapazole may need to be adjusted. Kidney tests are also monitored when a cat is being treated for hyperthyroidism.
• Periodontal Disease Treatment
  Over 85% of dogs and cats have some type of periodontal disease. Periodontal disease simply means that the gums and bone that hold the teeth in place are being destroyed by oral bacteria. This preventable disease is the number one diagnosed disease in our pets, yet many animals suffer needlessly. Periodontal disease begins with gingivitis, or inflammation of the gum tissue, which is caused by plaque. Plaque is a mixture of saliva, bacteria, glycoproteins and sugars that adhere to the tooth surface. Within minutes after a cleaning, a thin layer of plaque has adhered to the teeth. Eventually this hardens to become calculus or tartar. Calculus by itself is nonpathogenic - it does not cause disease. However, it does create a rough surface for more plaque to adhere to, and pushes the gums away from the teeth, which increases surface area for more plaque to adhere. Eventually, the supporting structures of the tooth (bone, tissue, periodontal ligament) are destroyed and the tooth becomes mobile and will either fall out on its own or need to be extracted. Signs of periodontal disease are bad breath (halitosis), reluctancy to eat, chewing on one side of the mouth, dropping food, pawing at the face or rubbing the face on the floor, drooling, becoming head shy, and painful mouth/face.
• Cancer Treatment
  Treatment of a disease with chemical agents (drugs); the term is most commonly used to describe the treatment of cancer with medication.

Emergency Care

• Seizure Treatment
  Epilepsy (often referred to as a seizure disorder) is a chronic neurological condition characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures. It is commonly controlled with medication, although surgical methods are used as well. Epileptic seizures are classified both by their patterns of activity in the brain and their effects on behaviour.
• Wound and Fracture Care
  Help For Animals provides Out Patient Services, these can include vaccines, deworming, allergy treatments, bloodwork, Heartworm testing and FIV/Felv testing. We also provide multiple types of wound care involving lazer treatments and therapeutic lazer treatments. The Clinic also provides a wide range of soft tissue surgeries, these surgeries can include tumor removals, cystotomies, cherry eye, and a vaste array of other surgeries not listed, please contact the clinic to set up your pets appointment today.
• Poisoning Treatment

Surgery

• Veterinary Surgery
  Help for Animals Clinic is primarily a high volume, low-cost, spay/neuter clinic. Kelly Pinkston is specially trained in state of the art spay/neuter procedures and has performed nearly 215,000 surgeries during her 30+ years of practice. The Clinic also offers other veterinary needs such as vaccinations, wellness visits, parasite control, dental care, soft-tissue surgery, therapeutic laser procedures, and more. Dr. Pinkston can take care of most of your pet's general needs. Our newly remodeled clinic features a large waiting area, 3 examination / treatment rooms, and a full surgical suite to comfortably accommodate the needs of your pets and he or she can look forward to meeting their own Tri-State area veterinarian.
• Spaying and Neutering
  Help For Animals sends out educational magazines to local elementary school, they are distributed to the local kids to help bring awareness of the importance of spay and neutering. Your donations will be use to cover the cost of printing and shipping this magazines to our local children. Bringing awareness to our community about the benefits of spay and neutering is a vital step to curbing the population.

Lab and X-Rays

• Laboratory Services
  Even if a dog has been given preventatives, it is still important to have annual checkups for heartworms by doing a blood test. Many people are not totally compliant about giving the preventive medication on time, and no medication works perfectly. If a dog has heartworms and it is given a dose of preventative, there can be a reaction that is detrimental to the dog, even deadly.
• X-Ray