How often should I take my pet for a check up?

In the young adult stage one full clinical examination a year is generally enough. From the mature stage onwards, which starts around seven years in cats and depends on size in dogs, the recommended frequency rises to twice a year. The reason is not age itself but how fast a chronic disease can progress in six months in an older animal.

Is blood work useful when my pet seems perfectly well?

It is most useful precisely then. A panel run in health defines what normal looks like for that individual and becomes the reference for every future check. Many early changes stay inside laboratory ranges while sitting well outside that animal's own normal, and without a baseline that difference is invisible.

How do I measure how much water my cat drinks?

Leave a single water source, fill the bowl with a measured amount, and after twenty four hours measure what remains, allowing for evaporation with a control bowl in the same room. Repeat over two or three days. Remember that an animal eating wet food takes in a lot of water from the food, so the figure has to be read alongside the diet.

Does my senior dog really need anaesthesia for a dental?

A complete dental assessment, with probing and radiographs, requires anaesthesia, because without it most of the disease, which sits below the gum line, stays invisible. Age alone is not a contraindication: what matters is cardiovascular, renal and hepatic status, assessed with pre anaesthetic testing. Procedures without anaesthesia remove visible calculus and leave the disease under the gum untouched.

Do weight changes of a few hundred grams really matter?

They matter a great deal, and the smaller the animal the more they matter. In a 4 kg cat, 200 grams is 5 per cent of body weight, proportionally equivalent to several kilos in an adult person. A 5 per cent loss not explained by a change in diet or activity deserves a phone call to the clinic, even with no other signs.

Health and prevention10 min readUpdated on July 30, 2026

Veterinary checks by life stage: what to add as your pet gets older

Which tests a young adult, a mature adult and a senior pet actually need, how often, and the measurements you can collect at home between visits.

Audience: Pet owners
Species: Dog, Cat
Scope: Valid everywhere, European Union, Italy

Taking a pet to the vet once a year is a good habit that often stops halfway: the weight gets checked, a product is renewed, and everyone goes home without anything being measured. Yet almost every chronic disease of dogs and cats, from kidney disease to hypertension to feline hyperthyroidism, begins with silent laboratory changes many months before a visible sign appears. Adjusting the visit by life stage means adding the right tests at the point where their chance of finding something becomes real. This page sets out which tests those are, how often they belong in the plan, and which data you can bring yourself.

Why the visit should change with age

A young healthy animal has a low probability of abnormal laboratory results, so a full panel mostly produces normal numbers. The same panel in a ten year old animal performs completely differently, because the diseases it looks for are far more prevalent. That is the logic of age based checks: add a test when the chance it finds something justifies the cost and the blood draw.

There is a second reason, more important than the first. A single value says little; a series says a great deal. Creatinine that drifts from the low end to the high end of the reference range over a year is still formally normal, but that shift is a signal. This is why the first panel should be run while the animal is well, not when it is ill: it exists to be compared with every panel that follows.

Indicative life stages for dogs and cats
Stage	Cat	Dog
Young adult	From 1 to 6 years	From the end of growth to roughly half the life expectancy of the size group
Mature adult	From 7 to 10 years	From half of life expectancy onwards
Senior	Over 10 years	In the last quarter of expected life span

In dogs the stage is read from body size, not from the birth certificate. A giant breed reaches the mature stage far sooner than a small breed, and the extra checks have to be brought forward accordingly. In cats the stages are more uniform, and seven years is the point at which the content of the visit should change.

The young adult: less, but done properly

In the young adult stage the annual visit has three aims: confirm that weight and body condition are stable, examine the mouth before periodontal disease becomes irreversible, and keep the prevention plans current. It is also the best moment to establish the animal's own baseline values, the ones every future check will be measured against.

Weight and body condition score on the 9 point scale, aiming to stay between 4 and 5. A rise of 10 per cent above ideal weight already justifies adjusting the ration.
Oral examination with the degree of calculus and any gingivitis recorded. Periodontal disease is the commonest condition in adult dogs and cats and stays silent for a long time.
Cardiac and respiratory auscultation, noting any murmur and its grade on the 1 to 6 scale.
Assessment of skin, ears, lymph nodes and joints, which in a young adult mainly serves to build a reference description.
A baseline panel at least once before the mature stage: complete blood count, essential biochemistry and urinalysis including specific gravity.

Urine specific gravity is the most underrated item on that list. A kidney that starts losing concentrating ability shows it in the urine before creatinine leaves the reference range, because creatinine only rises once damage is extensive. Asking explicitly for specific gravity in the urinalysis costs little and buys a great deal of time.

Mature adult and senior: what gets added

From the mature stage onwards the recommended frequency moves from once to twice a year, and the content grows. Six months in the life of an older animal is a long period, easily enough for kidney disease, heart disease or a tumour to move from early to advanced.

Tests and indicative frequency by life stage
Test	What it catches	Young adult	Mature and senior
Weight and body condition	Progressive loss or gain	Every visit	Every 6 months or more often
Complete blood count	Anaemia, inflammation, marrow changes	Baseline	Every 6 to 12 months
Biochemistry profile	Kidney, liver, glucose, proteins	Baseline	Every 6 to 12 months
Urinalysis with specific gravity	Concentrating ability, infection, proteinuria	Baseline	Every 6 to 12 months
Systolic blood pressure	Hypertension and damage to eye, kidney, heart	If indicated	At least yearly, more often in cats
Total thyroxine in cats	Feline hyperthyroidism	Not routine	From 7 years, alongside the panel
Oral examination	Periodontal disease, resorptive lesions, masses	Every visit	Every visit, with dental radiographs when indicated

Blood pressure deserves precision, because it is the test most often skipped and one of the most useful in the older cat. Systolic values persistently above 160 mmHg indicate a real risk of target organ damage, and above 180 mmHg the risk is considered severe, with possible retinal detachment and sudden blindness. Measurement should happen in a quiet setting and be repeated, since simply being in the clinic pushes the number up.

In the older dog the most useful addition is often the urine protein to creatinine ratio, which quantifies proteinuria that a dipstick describes poorly. In the older cat it is total thyroxine, because hyperthyroidism presents as weight loss with a preserved or increased appetite, a picture many owners read as ordinary ageing.

Measurements you can collect at home

Months pass between visits, and the data gathered at home during that time is often worth more than what is gathered in the consulting room, because it describes the animal in its normal state. Three parameters are easy to measure and carry documented clinical value.

Home measurable parameters and expected ranges
Parameter	How to measure	Expected range	When to report
Weight	Same scale every time, same time of day	Stable within a few percentage points	Change over 5 per cent in a month with no diet change
Water intake	Measured bowl, single water source, 24 hour measurement	Usually under 100 ml per kg per day	Above 100 ml per kg per day, repeated on several days
Resting respiratory rate	Breaths counted for 30 seconds during sleep, then doubled	Under 30 breaths per minute	Persistently above 30, or rising above the animal's own average
Appetite and ration	Grams actually eaten, not grams offered	Constant for the same food	Persistent drop or rise lasting over a week

Resting respiratory rate deserves a note of its own. It is the most reliable home parameter for monitoring an animal with known heart disease: a sustained rise above its personal average often precedes visible coughing or breathlessness by days. Count it while the animal is genuinely asleep or resting, not after play or in a warm room, and write it down with the date so a series builds up.

What to bring and what to ask at the visit

A check up returns far more when it arrives prepared. Consulting time is limited, and much of it goes into reconstructing information the owner already has, scattered across memory, receipts and messages. Bringing it written down changes the quality of the conversation.

Bring the weight and measurement series
A list of weights with dates, water intake if you have measured it, and resting respiratory rate if the animal has heart disease. A few lines are enough, as long as they are dated.
Bring the exact diet
Food name, grams per day, number of meals, every treat and every supplement. The specific formulation matters: two products from the same brand can differ considerably in energy density.
Bring the medication list with doses
Include occasional doses and over the counter products. Many interactions and side effects go unnoticed simply because a medicine was never mentioned.
Ask for the values, not just the verdict
Ask for a copy of the reports with the numbers and the laboratory reference ranges. Those are what make comparison possible at the next check, even at a different clinic.
Book the next check before you leave
In the mature and senior stages the next check is at six months. Booking it there and then, and putting it in the calendar, stops it slipping to twelve months by inertia.

Common mistakes that waste a check up

Running the first panel only once the animal is ill: without a baseline you cannot tell a new abnormality from a stable lifelong quirk.
Asking for blood work without urine: kidneys and urinary tract are assessed together, and specific gravity adds information blood alone does not give.
Changing laboratory at every check without keeping the reference ranges: different methods produce numbers that are not always comparable.
Weighing on different scales: the trend disappears into measurement noise, especially for cats and small dogs.
Treating weight loss in an older animal as normal: in a cat over seven, progressive weight loss is almost always pathological and needs investigating.
Postponing the oral examination because there are no symptoms: chronic mouth pain shows up as reduced activity, not as complaint.

That last point deserves expanding. Dogs and cats do not report dental pain the way a person would: they keep eating, often without hesitation, and instead show less play, less activity and less tolerance of having their head handled. This is why the oral examination belongs in every visit at every age, and not only once bad breath appears.

Frequently asked questions

How often should I take my pet for a check up?: In the young adult stage one full clinical examination a year is generally enough. From the mature stage onwards, which starts around seven years in cats and depends on size in dogs, the recommended frequency rises to twice a year. The reason is not age itself but how fast a chronic disease can progress in six months in an older animal.
Is blood work useful when my pet seems perfectly well?: It is most useful precisely then. A panel run in health defines what normal looks like for that individual and becomes the reference for every future check. Many early changes stay inside laboratory ranges while sitting well outside that animal's own normal, and without a baseline that difference is invisible.
How do I measure how much water my cat drinks?: Leave a single water source, fill the bowl with a measured amount, and after twenty four hours measure what remains, allowing for evaporation with a control bowl in the same room. Repeat over two or three days. Remember that an animal eating wet food takes in a lot of water from the food, so the figure has to be read alongside the diet.
Does my senior dog really need anaesthesia for a dental?: A complete dental assessment, with probing and radiographs, requires anaesthesia, because without it most of the disease, which sits below the gum line, stays invisible. Age alone is not a contraindication: what matters is cardiovascular, renal and hepatic status, assessed with pre anaesthetic testing. Procedures without anaesthesia remove visible calculus and leave the disease under the gum untouched.
Do weight changes of a few hundred grams really matter?: They matter a great deal, and the smaller the animal the more they matter. In a 4 kg cat, 200 grams is 5 per cent of body weight, proportionally equivalent to several kilos in an adult person. A 5 per cent loss not explained by a change in diet or activity deserves a phone call to the clinic, even with no other signs.

What to do next

Look at your pet's most recent laboratory report: if there is not one, ask for a baseline panel at the next visit while the animal is well. If it has left the young adult stage, book the next check at six months rather than twelve and ask that it include urinalysis with specific gravity and a blood pressure reading. In the meantime weigh the animal monthly on the same scale and write the date next to the number.