Pet owners concerned about periodically checking the health of their pets are now fortunate enough to have home health screening kits. These are basically urinalysis tests that often check for symptoms including kidney issues, diabetes, urinary and bladder issues, liver problems and a host of other diseases. These kits can be bought online for people interested in keeping an eye on their dogs’ health. The test can be completed and results analysed all at the comfort of your home. It provides an efficient way of spotting signs of dog health problems early on, so long as they are not replaced with annual veterinary visits.
Online retailers nowadays offer a broad variety of home health screening kits. General health screening kits often test similar issues, hence if you only seek to assess the general health of your dog, this should provide similar results. When buying your general kit, look at online reviews as a guide in addition to checking the price however, remember you will often receive what you pay for. If your dog has specific health issues that you are concerned about, you may look for specific health tests online. For example, there are test kits that specifically assess blood glucose levels of dogs to discover signs of diabetes. This testing kit in particular can be perhaps more useful to people with dogs already diagnosed with diabetes. Some other specific kits include DNA test kits that check a dog’s breed and various genetic issues it may suffer from. Worm test kits are important for people concerned about presence of parasites in their pets.
Pet owners can discuss with their respective veterinarians using screening kits, especially if concerned about their pets’ health issues due to family histories of health issues or ongoing medical concerns. The veterinarians could offer suggestions for particular products that can be used or offer splendid alternatives e.g. more frequent veterinary testing. Even during instances when veterinarians insist that home health screening is unnecessary, it is still up to you as the pet owner to choose whether to do it or not. It will not hurt your pets to test the more often, so long as these tests do not eventually replace annual veterinary visits.
Often, the only risk of conducting home health screening is getting false negative or positive results. To avoid getting false results, make sure you follow the instructions provided to the letter. This will increase your chances of getting the most accurate results possible. On that note, various tests have slightly different instructions. If you have ever conducted home health tests on your pets before, but decided to switch to different brands, make sure you read the instructions provided on the new product before the test.
Most general home health screening kits analyse pets’ urine for symptoms of hidden health issues. To discover them, most kits require pet owners to collect their pets’ urine samples. If you are fortunate enough to know the bathroom schedule of your pet, keep tabs on it and collect your sample at the right moment. These tests are quite efficient since they do not require large samples of urine, a mere teaspoon is usually good enough for the test.