Lucerne Veterinary Hospital Services

Preventive medicine
Pets need yearly physicals just like we do, perhaps more so since they can't talk to us about potential health problems. Parasite testing and prevention, periodic immunization and a thorough general health check are among the things that should be done yearly, or more often as your pet ages.

Dentistry with dental X-ray
Dental health is not just cosmetic. Diseased teeth and gums are both painful and a detriment to overall good health. We will assess your pet's oral health during his or her physical exam and determine if dental cleaning or other treatment is necessary. Dental X-ray helps determine whether teeth are diseased enough to require extraction.

Full in-house laboratory
Complete blood counts, blood chemistry, stool exams, urinalyses and many other tests can be done immediately here at the hospital. Tests that need to be sent to reference labs are shipped daily, generally with rapid results.

Digital X-ray
X-ray is an incredibly valuable tool in diagnosing disease. We have a state-of-the-art digital X-ray system that allows us to see the bones and organs in more detail than ever before. It also allows us to digitally — and instantaneously — send X-rays to specialists for a rapid second opinion.

Ultrasound
This can be an extremely helpful tool in diagnosing disease of the abdominal organs, as well as checking for pregnancy. In some circumstances, ultrasound can be used to help guide a biopsy instrument and obtain tissue samples, which may avoid the need for surgery. Within a short time, we hope to be offering ultrasound as an option to assess cardiac health.

Oncology and chemotherapy
Cancer is one of the most common causes of death in older pets today, although younger dogs are susceptible, too. Many tumors are responsive to drug therapy, while for others surgery is a better option. Should you find yourself facing cancer with your pet, we will explain which treatment would be most effective and offer you options based on what we and you feel would be best for your pet. Chemotherapy in pets is not the same as in people; our goal is that they have no side effects at all.

General Surgery
"Elective" surgeries, such as spays and neuters, are done daily, but many others are done for a variety of disease conditions. These include abdominal procedures (such as intestinal surgeries, splenectomies and liver lobe resections), chest surgeries (including lung lobe removals, tumor resections and some heart surgeries) and orthopedic surgeries (such as fracture repairs and cruciate ligament surgeries).

Click here for a more complete list of general surgeries offered by LVH.

Minimally Invasive Surgery
This form of surgery uses a tiny camera and surgical instruments introduced into the body through very small incisions, thus causing less pain and reducing recovery time. We can use this type of surgery to obtain biopsies of chest or abdominal organs or tumors, repair some joint problems and perform certain prophylactic procedures, such as "stomach tacking" in large breed dogs at risk for gastric dilatation/volulus or "bloat."

Click here for a more complete list of minimally invasive procedures offered by LVH.

Endoscopy
For these procedures, a tiny camera is used to enter the GI tract, airway, nose or bladder, depending on where the disease is suspected to be. Sometimes foreign bodies can be removed this way, avoiding surgery. Other times, it is used to obtain biopsies or assess abnormal anatomy.

Click here for more complete list of endoscopic procedures offered by LVH.