Affordable Pet Labs Update: Growing, Improving, and Protecting Pets This Season
Joseph Menicucci
At Affordable Pet Labs, we’ve been working hard this summer to make your experience as a pet parent even better. While things may have seemed quiet on the newsletter front, behind the scenes we’ve been focused on:
Enhancing lab results so they’re clearer and more useful for pet parents.
Expanding testing capabilities with new diagnostics to better monitor your pet’s health.
Growing our reach with new locations and in-home collection teams so we can help more families nationwide.
Connecting with pet groups and communities to learn what you need most to keep your pets happy and healthy.
We’re excited to continue delivering newsletters that not only update you on our services but also provide valuable, educational content about pet wellness and diagnostics. Our goal is to help your furry family members live longer, healthier lives.
🕷️ Tick Season Is Here: What Pet Parents Need to Know
Cooler weather means more time outdoors with your pets—but it also increases the risk of tick exposure. These tiny parasites can carry diseases that affect both pets and people.
Where Ticks Live
Ticks are commonly found in:
Grassy fields and wooded trails
Leaf litter and brush piles
Damp areas near lakes and streams
Suburban yards where wildlife roam
They latch onto pets as they pass by, attaching silently and feeding on blood. Within 24–48 hours, they can transmit harmful bacteria and parasites directly into the bloodstream.
Common Tick-Borne Diseases
Dogs:
Lyme Disease: Causes fever, joint pain, and kidney problems.
Ehrlichiosis: Leads to lethargy, weight loss, and bleeding issues.
Anaplasmosis: Triggers fever, joint pain, and low platelet counts.
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: Affects blood vessels, leading to fever and neurological signs.
Cats:
Cytauxzoonosis (Bobcat Fever): A serious, often fatal infection in the southern U.S.
Tularemia: A bacterial disease causing fever and swollen lymph nodes.
Tick Risks for Humans
Ticks also spread diseases to people, including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and anaplasmosis. Pets don’t directly pass these to humans, but they can carry ticks indoors where they might bite family members.
How We Help: Tick Testing
At Affordable Pet Labs, we offer blood tests that screen for tick-borne diseases. These help identify exposure early—before symptoms become severe. With results in hand, your veterinarian can recommend the right medications or treatments to protect your pet’s health.
Prevention Tips
✔ Use year-round flea and tick preventatives recommended by your vet. ✔ Check your pet daily—especially ears, neck, paws, and tail. ✔ Keep grass trimmed and remove leaf litter from your yard. ✔ Limit exposure to tall brush or wooded areas. ✔ Groom regularly to catch ticks before they transmit disease.
📍 Growing Nationwide
Affordable Pet Labs is proud to now have 32+ in-home collection locations across the U.S., with more coming soon. If your city is listed, we also serve many of the surrounding areas.
Not in an in-home service area yet? We also offer self-collection kits available online and through trusted partners like Chewy, Lambert Health Supplies, and Mall Shark. No matter how you order, all samples come back to our diagnostic lab for processing.
📢 Coming Soon…
We’re thrilled to announce that we’re updating our lab results format to make them more understandable for pet parents. Soon, results won’t look like plain PDFs—they’ll be easier to read and interpret, giving you clearer insights into your pet’s health.
These changes are still in progress, but we’ll be rolling them out soon—so keep an eye out for updated results on your pet’s next test!
🐾 Final Thoughts
Tick season is a reminder of why preventive care and diagnostics matter. By staying informed, using preventatives, and testing regularly, you can protect your pets and your family from tick-borne illness.
We’re grateful to have you as part of the Affordable Pet Labs family, and we’re excited for what’s ahead—new locations, upgraded results, and more ways to keep your pets healthy.
Hi and we are excited that you had a great experience with our collection kits. We did notice that you added 1 start out of 5. How can we make this one star a 5 star?
This is the best panel for the value. Not only does it give you the standard CBC/Chem values, but also heartworm, tick borne diseases and valley fever. It gives you everything you need to evaluate your dog's health. It's the only panel our rescue orders for our dogs.
