What Happens When I Get An Animal From A Shelter?

When people adopt an animal from a shelter most of the time your adoption fee will cover some initial vaccines and a spay/neuter surgery depending on the shelter you adopt from, but sometimes that is not the case.  Always make sure you know what is covered by your adoption fee before leaving with your new pet.  Nevertheless, as a new pet parent an initial vet visit should be one of the first things you do to establish a baseline evaluation and so your vet can meet your new wonderful pet.

Also, it is important to note that there are a lot of 'cooties' in shelters so your new pet may come down with a cold after you get him/her home.  This is not uncommon.  The stress of being in the shelter and then moving to a new home will lower your pet's immune system making him/her more susceptible to illness.  You may hear your vet say something like URI or upper respiratory infection.  This is nothing more than a cold that antibiotics will take care of successfully.

If you adopt a dog, you may hear things like kennel cough and distemper from people.  Those are two very good reasons to take your dog to the vet soon after adoption but no reason to panic.  Most shelters will vaccinate against these two things which protects the dogs against these two things.  Kennel cough is very contagious, however, which is why it is very important for shelters to not only do an exam in addition to vaccines to ensure dogs do not contract this viral and bacterial disease.  Antibiotics will treat the bacterial part of kennel cough but NOT the viral.

http://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/respiratory/c_dg_canine_tracheobronchitis#.UW6inaASRsg

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/kennel_cough.html

http://vetmedicine.about.com/od/dogdiseasesconditions/a/CW-Distemper.htm

http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/distemper-symptoms-treatments-dogs

There are things you can do to help keep your pet as healthy as possible to help prevent illnesses in the first place.  L-Lysine for cats is a great way to help their immune system.  It's a human amino acid that stops the replication of viruses and allows their immune system fight off any viruses that may be trying to rear it's ugly head.

Some natural options for your dog are Echinacea and Dandelion.  The Echinacea will help the immune system much like the L-Lysine and the Dandelion will help with the liver and digestive health.  I do use the L-Lysine with my personal cats and have used it with former foster cats.  I have found it to be extremely effective in helping to prevent illness and the ones who were sick when I got them have gotten over their illness quicker.

http://www.nativeremedies.com/petalive/ailment/cats-dogs-viral-infection-remedies.html

I hope I have given you some information you can take home to your pets and you will use or tell your family and friends about.  It is our goal to be as informative as possible about topics you want to know about so if you have something you'd like to know more information about please send us a note.

As always we welcome any and all respectful comments and questions.  Don't forget to follow us from this page on Facebook and Twitter.  Tell your family and friends about us and once again, thanks for reading!