Why You Take Animals To A Vet Sociology Essay

When a person gets sick they usually visit the doctor, but when an animal gets sick they can’t go to a human doctor, they visit what’s called a veterinarian. A variety of animals can visit the vet, from house pets to farm animals to animals in the zoo. Animals that visit the vet are healthier due to the number of vaccines and technology available; though it may be expensive, it does prolong an animal’s life.

Veterinarians are physicians who help diagnose and treat diseases in animals. With continuous checkups, veterinarians can help control and prevent illness and disease in the animal. As stated by pet care, no matter how careful animal owners are, there will be a time when animals need to visit the vet. Though some believe vets can only offer an examination, they actually can do so much more. Vets are capable of spotting certain illnesses before they take full effect through blood test. They can repair joint or ligament, and they even provide professional grooming. Visiting the vet can prolong animals’ lives with the physicals done, and making sure animals have all their vaccinations. The major benefit for animals that go to the vet is that they are healthy. But the duties of veterinarians just don’t stop at making sure animals are healthy. They make sure the meats people eat are healthy by testing the animal for diseases, monitoring the transportation of the animal, and the slaughtering of the now ‘meat’.

A veterinarian can decide their specialty based off where they grew up at and the location of where their practice is at or will be at. There are three major categories that a veterinarian can specialize in; small, large, and exotic. Small animals are mostly known as the house pets, and they usually go to clinics or private practices. Clinics can be used for the larger animals, but they are mostly used for small animals. Clinics and private practices provide a waiting area, appointments, emergency appointments, and boarding areas. The major difference between a clinic and private practice is that a clinic is run by the government and a private practice is run by one person, the owner. The next specialties for a veterinarian are large animals. These animals tend to be farm animals, like cows, horses, and sheep. The main reason veterinarians do home visits for these types of animals is because of their size, the population they come in because it’s just not one cow at the farm. Equestrian veterinarians can also fall under this category, they focus in just horses. Those veterinarians tend to focus more on the unique horses, like ones that race or designer breed horses. The last type of animal that a vet can specialize in is exotic animals. These animals tend to be zoo animals; they can be monkeys, iguanas, ferrets or potbellied pigs. Depending on if they are located at the zoo, there will be a special veterinarian located at the zoo that runs their own private practice. Depending on the size of these exotic animals, that are ‘pets’ to some people; they would go to a specific private practice for exotic animals only. But, if they are large exotic animals, a specific veterinarian would make a special home visit. Though there are three different specialties, there are veterinarians that will run a private practice for all types of animals and make home visits for all types of animals.

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As most people probably already know, the main reason to visit the vet is to help keep their animal healthy and living longer. Animals do age faster than humans do, so it is very important for animals to visit the vet. Just like humans, as the animals gets older their health does become worse. There are many pros for owners who take their animals to the veterinarian. Not only can an owner take their pet to get a wellness checkup, they can also have grooming done. When owners have their animals groomed, sometimes they take them to places where it’s not the best job being done. But taking them to the vet can ensure you that there are professionals back there taking care of the grooming process. Another pro that can benefit the owners and anyone else around the animal, is that taking an animal to the vet not only helps them be healthy but help keeps people in contact with the animal healthy too. Diseases can spread from human to pet and even pet to human. Then the fact that some animals are the meat people eat, so it would be a major pro having that meat healthy and disease free. Insurance can really help out with costs of vet bills for the exotic animals, so that is another major pro. Then by visiting the veterinarian, animals receive vaccinations. If an animal gets a disease or illness after receiving that certain vaccination and they recover, then they can become immune to it, which that will protect them for life. A con about visiting the vet of course is the money. Vaccinations, grooming, dentals, and surgeries are not cheap. It can be hard to afford an animal going to the vet monthly. Then another con about going to the vet would be if the veterinarian found something wrong. While performing their checkups there are possibilities of them finding a tumor or another illness. Then it will be expensive to pay for surgeries or medicine necessary for the animal to recover. Of course, the pros outweigh the cons. Having an animal’s life become longer and healthier is worth the cost sometimes.

Visiting the veterinarian is mostly for the animal’s wellness checkup. A wellness checkup is just checking the animals out and making sure things are normal. The veterinarians evaluate the overall health of the animal and try to detect serious illnesses before they turn into something bad or terminal. Veterinarians check the animal’s ear for unusual odors; they check the animal’s teeth too. Then they make sure the lungs are working properly, the heart rate is normal, and then they check the joints of the animals. Checkups for the larger animals are somewhat different than the checkups for smaller animals. Usually when a large animal is having a wellness checkup or physical they are put a sleep with an anesthetic. After the animal is asleep the veterinarian assistants record the rates of the animal, while the vet focuses on the physical part of the examination. Medicine used in veterinary is similar to humans’ medicine. An animal can catch a simple ‘stomach bug’ and also have many diseases that are terminal like types of cancers. Though a veterinarian can’t help prevent cancer, they can help prevent stomach bugs with the help of vaccinations. A vaccine is a live pathogen or a killed virus that can be injected to help pathogens in the animal’s body produce antibodies. The antibodies are what help make an animal immune to a certain illness or disease. Veterinarians can perform blood tests which help show how immune an animal is to a certain disease. Animals can only become immune to a certain illness or disease if they catch it and recover from it. Sometimes animals don’t recover and then they don’t have the antibodies needed to help make them become immune to it. When people think of surgeries being performed by a vet, they think mostly of removals. But vets can perform many more types of surgeries, like neutering and spaying of house pets. Not only does neutering and spaying make an animal infertile, but by doing that it can help prevent certain cancers in the male and female reproductive organs. Then it has been proven that it reduces the chance of animals running off. They can declaw animals like house cats or even bears have been declawed. Also, bone and joint repair are major surgeries done to help animals. Sometimes joints become dislocated and the animal needs that surgery to be able to function properly. The last type of surgery that can be done is cosmetic, just like humans an animal can have things changed.

Out of all the pros there are for visiting the veterinarian, the fact that just a visit once a month can prolong an animal’s life majorly. Having animals checked out by professionals with this technology in the 21st century just provides accurate information versus the knowledge of most animal owners. For the worst con, it’s not really about the cost for most animal lovers. It’s about losing an animal, so the worst con for visiting the vet is the chances of the veterinarian finding something terminal with the animal. Obviously animals who visit the veterinarians like they should are healthier than those animals that haven’t ever been to a veterinarian. Just like humans, animals can leave germs and get germs. The germs can be in the waiting room area or in the back where the vet clinic boards animals. So even though animals visit the veterinarian they still can become unhealthy by catching a disease there at the vet. Veterinarians can do house calls and come personally to the animal. Making those animals the healthiest; due to them not being in contact with the sick and still receiving the proper care by a veterinarian.