One of the important things we will request at your pet's annual exam is a stool sample.  We follow the Companion Animal Parasite Council's recommendations for diagnosing, preventing and treating parasitic disease in your dog or cat.

Your pet's fresh fecal sample will be submitted to our referral laboratory and examined for intestinal parasites including roundworms, hookworms, whipworms, giardia and other parasites.

Many of the parasites that infect dogs and cats are zoonotic, meaning that they can be transmitted to and cause disease in humans, especially children.  For example, roundworms infection in humans can lead to blindness or organ dysfunction, and hookworm infection can lead to painful skin disease.

We currently recommend that we check a fecal sample each year for every dog and outdoor cat, and at least once on a new indoor cat.