Diagnostics

Dog resting during an abdominal ultrasound

Your pet can't tell us where it hurts, so diagnostics help us find out. Our in-house testing and imaging give our veterinarians clear answers quickly, so treatment can start sooner.

What It Is and When It's Used

Diagnostics are used during wellness care, before anesthesia, when a pet is unwell, and to monitor ongoing conditions. Our services include:

Abdominal ultrasound: looks at the organs in the belly, such as the liver, spleen, kidneys, bladder, stomach, intestines, and adrenal glands. It can show changes in size, shape, and texture, as well as masses, stones, blockages, or fluid.
Thoracic ultrasound: looks inside the chest. It includes heart evaluation (echocardiography), which shows the heart's structure, chambers, valves, and how well it pumps. It is a little like watching a live video of the heart at work, as each chamber fills and each valve opens and closes with every beat. It also checks for fluid around the heart or lungs and helps evaluate masses in the chest.
Laboratory testing: blood counts, organ function panels, urinalysis, fecal testing, and other tests that show how the body is working on the inside
Advanced imaging: digital radiography (X-rays), which shows bones, the lungs, and the outline of organs, used alongside ultrasound to build a complete picture. CT imaging is planned for the future.

Inside every ultrasound probe are special crystals that act a little like magic. When a gentle electrical pulse reaches them, they hum with sound waves far too high for your pet to hear or feel. Those waves travel into the body and echo back from each organ, and the same crystals catch the returning echoes and turn them back into electrical signals. The machine reads those signals and paints a live picture of the heart, liver, kidneys, and other organs, all without radiation, needles, or discomfort.

X-rays work a bit like shadow pictures. Dense tissue such as bone blocks more of the X-rays and shows up bright white, air-filled lungs let most of them pass through and look dark, and soft organs appear in the shades of gray in between.

Benefits for Your Pet

Accurate diagnostics help avoid guesswork. They can catch disease early, guide the right treatment, and show us whether a treatment is working. Ultrasound and X-rays are non-invasive and painless.

What to Expect

Before: For some blood tests and abdominal ultrasounds, your pet may need to fast. We'll tell you if that applies. Shaving a small patch of fur helps the ultrasound probe make good contact.

During: Most pets lie calmly on a padded table while a team member gently holds them. Some anxious pets, or exotic pets, may need light sedation. Most imaging takes from a few minutes to under an hour.

After: Many results are ready the same day. Your veterinarian will explain the findings in plain language and talk with you about next steps.

Important to Know

Diagnostics are tools that help guide decisions. Sometimes one test leads to another, and we'll always explain why a test is recommended before we go ahead.

Questions? Ask our team.