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ACC Spring Newsletter 1

Animal Care Centers Newsletter

Celebrating 10 Years of Care in Douglas CountyIt’s hard to believe it has been 10 years since we opened our doors. More unbelievable that it has been over a year since our expansion. Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to all of you who have joined us on this journey and for your support. We thought this would be a great time to look back on what was and share a little about what’s yet to come.

Price Changes and New Programs

Our expanded facility gave us the ideal opportunity to fine-tune our practice. New equipment, room for more staff and a better layout gives us new tools to make our center more efficient.

Coupled with that has been a renewed focus on wellness and preventative care. It is a fact of life our precious pets age faster than we do. For every human year a dog or cats ages seven or more years.

We believe the focus of veterinary care needs emphasize on prevention and wellness. Our expansion last year gave us a chance to pause and reflect on our own practice and incorporate ideas (many from you) on how to focus on wellness and prevention and to make it more affordable. Here is a review of current programs and a preview of what’s to come.

Spays and Neuters

One day a week a surgeon and their support staff are dedicated to performing only spays and neuters. This allows us to offer those services at a more affordable cost to you. Typically it’s every Friday.

Appointments are on a first come first serve basis. Each patient will be assigned to a two-person tech team that will work in conjunction with the doctor. Our technicians will check in patients and see them through the entire process.

Prescription Medication

When Animal Care Center opened our doors in 2003, we relied on industry standards to set pricing for prescription medication. Realizing we cannot always compete with big volume chains and online stores, we support you in using alternative sources for prescription medications.

We took a hard look at our pricing structure last year and decided to restructure prescription medication prices. Many of our prescription medications continue to be offered at a significant cost savings to you.

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It’s Heartworm Season. Why we are seeing more of it in Colorado on page 3

Celebrating 10 YearsA look back at our first 10 years in business and a preview of upcoming changesPages 1 & 2

Heartworm Clinics are April 6th, April 27th and May 18thRead about Heartworm disease Page 3

New Surgical ServicesLearn about our new partnership with Veterinary Surgical Services.Page 2

Daisy LynchRead Jim Lynch’s touching story about a new lease on life for his Labrador retriever DaisyPage 4

A Quarterly Newsletter Spring 2013

A heated in-ground, indoor hydrotherapy pool is just one of many amenities we

added last year.

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Hydrotherapy and Recreation Pool

Our Hydrotherapy pool is tailor made for dogs. Heated to a minimum temperature of 89 degrees the therapy pool is the perfect environment for rehabilitation, fitness training and recreation. It is the only pool of its kind (that we are aware of) dedicated solely to companion pets.

Water is a great medium for rehabilitation and exercise, especially for our senior companions with achy joints. Our staff works in the pool with each pet to speed them on their way to recovery.

It’s Not Just for Therapy

We designed this pool with you, our client in mind. Many of our canine friends enjoy the outdoors with their owners. Water is part of the fun. We wanted to provide a safe, fun place for dogs to enjoy their time in the water. You can also reserve the pool for a private swim.

We have a high end filtration, UV light and water treatment system that makes the water safe. Very little chlorine is used making it the ideal place for dogs to hang out.

Veterinary Surgical ServicesOur New Partnership with VSS

We are very excited to announce a new partnership with Veterinary Surgical Services (VSS). They are board certified surgeons with extensive experience. They are part of the VRCC hospital referral group and we are glad to have them on our team. They will be providing surgical services to our clients at our facility each Thursday.

What does this mean for you?

We can now perform many orthopedic procedures inhouse that we used to refer out to other surgeons. This allow us to improve our continuity of care and provide our clients with the convenience of having their surgery performed at The Animal Care Center of Castle Pines.

How does it work?

We have reserved surgical blocks on Thursdays where VSS comes into our practice to perform the procedure in our surgical suites. Should you wish to have a consult with a surgeon they can also evaluate your pet while they are here.

What’s next? Changes Coming This Spring

We developed new programs last year to provide more value through our routine dental, spay and neuter programs. Our reduced fees on prescriptions made aftercare even more affordable for many of our clients.

Our efforts have not stopped there. We will be adding two new programs in an effort to continue to improve service, affordability and quality of care.

Payment Plans

While we have always provided finance options, we will be able to provide new no interest payment plans. Credit approval will not impact your credit score and we will be able to offer lower down payment options for expensive procedures.

Wellness Plans

Prevention is still more cost effective than treatment. Like anything, it’s easy to put off the cost of preventative care.

Good preventative care catches illness and disease in its early stage, potentially improving the quality and longevity for your pet.

Wellness plans make preventative care more convenient and affordable. These plans bundle exams and diagnostics to evaluate the current health of your pet and identify potential issues early on to get ahead of illness or disease. Annual exams, blood work and even dentals are package into various plans.

Multiple plans will be offered to meet the needs of you and your pet(s). Costs for the plans are conveniently spread throughout the year as a monthly payment.

Additionally, plan participants are eligible for reduced rates when your pet does have to be treated for an unforeseen medical need.

We are still forming our plans. This April we will host a client focus group to get input into our plan design. If you would like to participate, please contact Linda Ringstad or speak with your doctor. You can reach our clinic at 303.688.3660.

Celebrating 10 Years"Dogs have owners, cats have staff." ~ Anonymous

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ACC Spring Newsletter 3

Heartworm disease is a potentially fatal disease caused by parasitic worms that can infect dogs, cats and a variety of other mammals (30 different species including sea lions).

Every household should consider their pets at risk, even if they never go outside. We are now seeing higher incident rates of heartworm disease in Colorado. We don’t know the exact cause for sure, however, the influx of pets in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the large volume of people moving in from out of state are suspected in the increase of dogs and cats carrying the disease.

The dog is considered to be the primary host. The only known method of transmission is via the bite of heartworm infected mosquitoes. When an infected mosquito bites a dog, it takes several months for the larvae to migrate through the skin into the circulatory system and develop

into sexually mature adults in the chambers of the heart. Mature heartworms can inflict permanent damage in the heart and lungs of dogs and cats. Sometimes a severe immune response occurs, which can then

damage other organs as well. Once the infection becomes symptomatic it is labeled heartworm disease. Left untreated for a long period of time heartworm disease is almost always fatal to the infected pet. There is an FDA-approved treatment for dogs;

however the associated risks are high and it is more likely to be successful if the infection is detected early. During treatment, the heartworms release from the walls of the heart and head down stream to die inside the lungs.

Dogs undergoing this treatment require complete rest and additional medications may be required to help control the body’s inflammatory response. Heartworm disease is almost 100% preventable, and as with most diseases, prevention is easier,

less expensive and safer than treatment. Heartworm preventatives do not kill adult heartworms.

Prior to starting monthly preventatives, a negative test result is required by all veterinarians and the makers of heartworm preventatives every year in order for them to guarantee their product. Monthly preventative chews are only in your pet’s system for 48 to 72 hours, so when you treat the following month you are actually treating backwards in time. Year-round prevention has the added advantage of keeping your dog free from other intestinal parasites such as round worms and hook worms.

We have set aside three dates this year April 6th, 27th and May 18th 2013 (both Saturdays) for conducting the heartworm test at a discounted price of $29.99 (normally $49) for your pets. Please call for an appointment.

Canine Heartworm Disease

Heartworm disease is almost 100% preventable and, as with most

diseases, prevention is easier, less expensive and safer than treatment. ACC’s Heartworm Clinics are April 6th, 27th and May 27th.

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D A I S Y L Y N C H

A N E W L E A S E O N L I F E

Jim and Daisy look for every opportunity to enjoy the great Colorado outdoors. Weekdays are spent on long walks and dog parks. Weekends find them running, biking and hiking in Colorado’s scenic backcountry.

Daisy is a typical Labrador retriever; gentle, intelligent, full of energy, loves to be with her owner. As you might expect, her favorite activity is chasing down balls.

So, when Daisy, who is 9 years old, began to limp after those fun-filled weekends, Jim started to worry something wasn’t right. Eventually, after a visit to the dog park, Jim knew something was wrong with Daisy.

“Daisy is a ball chaser and after a while she wasn’t able to run after the ball. She was not even able to walk around the house without limping. I knew she was in pain.”

Jim and Daisy turned to their local veterinarian in North Denver for help, where she was diagnosed with arthritis. Daisy was put on Carprofen, also commonly know as Rimadyl, for the next two weeks.

“I hoped that the medication and rest would bring her right back to normal. Unfortunately, Daisy didn’t show much improvement. After a few more weeks, I knew we needed to do something else.”

After a return visit to their veterinarian, radiographs showed Daisy had a partially torn tendon in her right shoulder in addition to the arthritis. Daisy’s doctor recommended a comprehensive rehabilitation program. She immediately began underwater treadmill sessions.

“We did rehab for about 10 weeks and Daisy definitely showed improvement. However, towards the latter half she leveled off and it was apparent that we would not be able to get her all the way back with just rehab alone.”

During Daisy’s rehabilitation, he found out about stem cells. After doing some research Jim decided to have Daisy evaluated for stem cell therapy.

“I had never heard of stem cell therapy, but given how much Daisy means to me, I was willing to try anything. I consulted a few doctors and chose the Animal Rehabilitation and Wellness Center to work with Daisy.

Their entire staff was great from the start. I am not great with names but they are all exceptional people. What made me feel comfortable was that they presented other options besides stem cells first. They took time to educate me about my options. In the end Dr. Adams and I felt that stem cell therapy was our best option.”

Stem Cells repair or replace damaged or worn out tissue. It is one of the body’s mechanisms to heal itself. Stem cell and other regenerative cells are injected back into the patient at concentrated levels to repair injuries, disease and damaged tissue.

Stem cells were harvested from Daisy’s abdomen with a simple procedure and overnighted to Vet-Stem for processing. Two days later Daisy’s own stem cells were injected into her torn tendon and arthritic joints.

Four weeks after her stem cell injections Daisy started a rehabilitation regiment. She responded to treatment rapidly. The combined therapies seemed to alleviate most of

her arthritis pain and help heal the partial tear in her shoulder.

“About 2-3 weeks after the final round of injections you could see Daisy was not limping. Daisy was feeling so much better about 3 weeks after the 2nd round of injections, she was running and turning sharply on her front left leg. After about 4-5 weeks after the final round of injections, Daisy was going on walks of 5+ miles and running around.

I would say Daisy is 85-90% where she was before the injury. She may be 100%, but we haven’t tried to go back to the dog park and have her run all out after a ball. She is able to run through the snow, has no problems going up or down hills and we are going on walks of 3+ miles in the morning and 5+ in the afternoons on weekends.”

“Before her injury, she ran with such reckless abandon, I don’t know if she will ever return to that form, but we’re going to give it a shot this summer. Even after a long hard day of exercising, Daisy is not limping in the evenings, which she did do prior to her injury.

Stem Cell Therapy was a great choice for Daisy and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I have another Lab mix that’s 7 years old and it’s nice to know how I will be able to help her as she ages. It truly has been a new lease on life for Daisy.”

This article will appear in the next issue of Mile High Dog. You can check out Jim and Daisy’s blog at http://dabigsexydaisy.blogspot.com/ and more information on Rehabilitation and Stem Cell Therapy provided by the Animal Rehabilitation and Wellness Center at 303.688.3660 or www.animalrehabctr.com.