Your Pet's (Medical) Story...

Every pet tells a story.

Sometimes it’s written clearly — in how they play, eat, or rest — and sometimes the story unfolds quietly beneath the surface. As veterinarians, our job is to learn to read those pages carefully.

The physical exam is where the story begins.

It’s like looking at the cover of a book — noticing the brightness in their eyes, the strength in their muscles, the rhythm of their heartbeat. It gives us a sense of who they are, but it’s still just the outside.

When we run blood work, we finally open the book.

We turn the first few pages and start discovering what’s happening inside. We see how the liver and kidneys are functioning, whether there’s anemia, infection, or inflammation. Blood work helps us detect subtle changes early — sometimes before your pet ever shows symptoms.

But here’s the truth many pet parents don’t realize:

Blood work doesn’t tell the whole story.

It rarely identifies cancer, and it doesn’t explain joint pain, fatigue, or behavior changes. Think of it as the table of contents — it guides us toward where to look next, but it’s not the full novel.

That’s why a complete approach to your pet’s health goes beyond numbers on a page.

We combine what we see on exam, what blood work reveals, what imaging may show, and what you observe at home — appetite, energy, mood, mobility — to build the full narrative. And when we weave together both Western diagnostics and integrative medicine — things like acupuncture, nutrition, physical rehabilitation, and energy balance — we’re not just reading the story; we’re helping to rewrite it for healing.

At Golden Phoenix Pet Wellness, every patient’s journey

is its own story — one that deserves curiosity, compassion, and care from every angle.

Blood work is where we start reading. But the real magic happens when we explore what comes after the first chapter.

The First Page of their Story