How can I as an owner assess the general condition of my dog/cat?

This is a tool that you as an animal owner can use to monitor changes in your animal's general condition over time. Keeping a diary is a good idea as it helps to record small changes that you could otherwise easily miss or forget. Make notes such as when you noticed the first signs/symptoms, make sure to note how long they lasted and other relevant information.

The following parameters may be important to monitor:

- General condition: Is you pet bright and alert, relaxed or perhaps unsettled, lethargic or lying down all the time?

- Temperature: measured with a normal medical thermometer inserted into the anal opening. Use a lubricating ointment or vaseline. Normal temperatures in dogs and cats are 37.5-39.0 and 38.0-39.5 degrees Celsius respectively.

- Appetite: normal, reduced, increased

- Thirst: normal, reduced, increased

- Stools: normal, loose, watery, hard, bloody, slimy, amount and frequency

- Urine: Urination frequency (urinates less often/ more often than normal). Colour: light, dark, bloody, clear or cloudy.  Amount: (only a few drops / normal amount / large amount)

- Vomiting: How often?, Visual notes: clear, yellow, slimy, bloody, food, foreign material. When: what time of the day?, in relation to food intake?

- Respiratory rate at rest (ideally sleeping): count the number of breaths per minute. Normal breathing rate for cats and dogs is about 10-30 breaths per minute.

- Cough: How often? All the time, intermittently, during exercise, at rest. Type: wet, dry, retching cough?  Discharge: one or both nostrils, colour and consistency.

Things that are good to have at home:

- Simpler bandage material: cotton wool, compresses, elastic gauze, surgical tape

- Thermometer

-  Saline/Sodium chloride (NaCl: sodium chloride) for eyewash or wound cleaning (you can make your own saline by adding table salt to cool boiled water)

- Chlorhexidine solution for wound cleaning

- Lubricating eye drops: for example Lubrithal or SentrX