COVID-19 and Opossum Pike Vet Clinic

COVID-19, Your Pet and the Opossum Pike Veterinary Clinic

The focus of the Opossum Pike Veterinary Clinic has always been the health and welfare of our patients, clients, and staff. With the advent of the coronavirus COVID-19, this still remains our goal.

To protect the health of both humans and pets, we ask that if:

• Your pet is healthy, and is only scheduled for an elective, routine appointment (such as annual exam, vaccines, spay, neuter, clip nails), please reschedule your appointment for a later date.

If you or anyone in your household has been exposed to, diagnosed, showing symptoms or have recently traveled overseas or to an area with active COVID-19 infections and:

• Your pet is sick or injured, please call the office for an appointment. Advise the receptionist that COVID-19 exposure is or may be present in your household. We will set up an appointment time but ask all actively infective persons to have someone else bring the animal in. When you arrive for your appointment that you STAY IN YOUR CAR until a staff member advises you it is okay to enter the clinic. We will use one door for both entering and exiting for these appointments. Clients will not have access to the waiting room, check in/out counters or hallways. The exam room will be disinfected between each appointment to minimize the potential for the spread of the disease.

All requests for prescriptions and diets:

• Your pet is in need of prescription medications or a prescription diet, please call the office. The receptionist will process your prescription request giving you the total owed. We ask that clients prepay this amount by credit card, if at all possible, prior to picking up their prescriptions. This limits the opportunity of possible cross contamination. Then once you arrive at the clinic STAY IN YOUR CAR and call the office to let them know you are there for pickup. A staff member will bring you for pet's prescriptions and the receipt.

Other measures we are taking to protect against COVID-19:

• Greatly reduced routine, elective appointments and procedures.
• Our doctors will be available for telephone consultations at no charge to advise clients who may have medical concerns regarding their pets.
• We've removed all reading materials from our waiting room and exam rooms.
• We're regularly disinfecting entry and exit doors, waiting room and exam room furniture, and all counter tops including check in and check out areas of reception.
• We continue, as we have always, to disinfect our exam rooms between appointments.
• Our clients will have access to soap and water in the exam rooms for washing their hands. Sorry folks, but hand sanitizer is hard to come by these days.

COVID-19 and your pet:

At this time, there is no evidence that the COVID-19 virus is contagious to dogs, cats or other household pets. However, all pet owners should be aware of measures to take to protect themselves.

• Do not walk your dog outside where YOU may come into contact with infected people.
• The virus can live on surfaces, including pets. Do not pet or handle animals that may belong to possibly infected people. If they have sneezed or coughed on that animal, the virus could linger on the surface of the fur.
• Keep cats indoors until the situation dramatically improves.
• If you are sick and in need of pet food, kitty litter or other NECESSARY pet care items, ask a neighbor to help out by picking up these items for you.

Please be assured that the Opossum Pike Veterinary Clinic will remain open to care for our patients as long as it is legally permitted and our staff remains healthy. You can help ensure this by observing the above protocals.

For updates to our policy, please visit our webpage, OpossumPikeVet.com or Facebook page. For more information on COVID-19 and pets, please visit the American Veterinary Medical Association at https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/covid-19-faq-pet-owners.pdf