This section contains extensive information on the diagnosis and treatment of specific diseases for pets and exotic animals. It is intended to give you a basic understanding of some animal diseases, and to augment the information you receive from one of our veterinarians.

You will learn about anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology, cause, diagnosis, and treatment. You will also see videos and many high quality photos including radiographs (x-rays) and ultrasound pictures, and get to see actual surgery performed.

Dr. Wood and Ridgeway holding three 1 hour old puppies

You will even get a chance to see a C-section performed by Dr. Wood and Dr. Ridgeway

In the last decade, there have been great advances in the medical treatment of animals. We now have at our disposal drugs to treat chronic diseases that previously caused unnecessary discomfort and pain.

In addition to these drugs, there have been significant advances in the treatment of animals using a more natural approach. This involves stimulating the body’s own immune and nervous system. The natural approach utilizes diet and medications called nutraceuticals, along with compounds that occur naturally in our environment.

A recent advance in the natural approach has been our ability to stimulate the nervous system to increase blood flow to diseased organs, and correct imbalances that have been present for a significant period of time. A major advantage to this approach is the fact that no anesthesia, injections, or drugs are used. You can learn more about this in our VNA page.

Treating A Cat With The Companion Laser

In addition to VNA we also utilize the healing power of the therapy laser. An added bonus if you watch us do this is the cool glasses you get to wear!

Dog wearing a pair of laser therapy glasses

Even our patients get to wear the laser glasses!

These advances now allow us to utilize a balanced approach to disease treatment and prevention, utilizing medications as needed, while simultaneously stimulating the body to heal itself. We are now able successfully manage chronic diseases involving the:

You might also want to familiarize yourself with our laser surgery before reading about the surgeries we perform at our hospital. It is a major advance in the reduction of pain, swelling and inflammation in animals.

Dr. P teaching laser surgery to a student extern

We have been performing and teaching laser surgery of over 25 years

First, we suggest you learn the thought process of how our doctor’s make a diagnosis. There is much more to it than you probably realize. Then return here and click on a specific species below to learn about some of the more common diseases we treat at the Long Beach Animal Hospital.

Click on the species below to get detailed information on diseases specific to that species:

Search by Disease

After you have memorized all of those diseases don’t forget to visit our Wildlife Care page. As part of our community service we provide free care for injured wildlife. We care for over 1,000 wild and injured animals each year, and if it wasn’t for the work of our doctors and staff we would not be able to provide such a service.

Receptionist holding a hawk from our Wildlife Program

Do you know what kind of hawk or receptionist America is holding?