Laboratory Services

At North Hobart Veterinary Hospital we offer a complete laboratory service. This service is a valuable resource in helping us make important decisions about your pet’s health and care.

In-house blood testing equipment enables us to perform many tests on site and allows us to receive results quickly. Other more comprehensive tests and samples are sent via overnight courier to an external veterinary pathology laboratory and results are often back the next day depending on the test requested.

Frequently Performed Blood Tests

Pre-anaesthetic blood tests enable us to check the inner workings of your pet. It will help us determine if your pet is medically fit to have an anaesthetic and surgery.

Older pets require screening tests to check how their body organs are functioning as they age. It also helps us determine the correct medications to choose and minimise the chance of adverse side effects.

When your pet is on longer-term medication we need to regularly check how the body is responding to the medication and determine if adjustments can be made BEFORE your pet shows signs of deterioration. These tests are often done in-house and the results are often available within half an hour.

Understanding the importance of laboratory testing allows you to be an informed partner in your pet’s care. Published research shows that more than 10% of pets brought in for annual check-ups have an underlying disease or abnormality. Some diseases may not yet visible on physical examination and your pet’s illnesses may be undetected without laboratory work.

Some testing requires that you pet not eat for 12 hours before the sample or that the sample be taken at a certain time of the day. Please check with us and we will happily tell you what to do.

We routinely apply a local anaesthetic cream to you pets skin allowing the test to be done painlessly. Treats are always offered to the patient after the blood testing.

Urine

Some tests are better performed on urine and sometimes the urine may hold answers that will help understand changes to the blood.

We often ask you to collect a urine sample at home- you would be surprised how talented you are at this procedure.

Please refer to the links below for handy (and amusing) tips how to collect urine from your pet.

Handy Tips for Collecting Your Pets Urine