What do my pet's blood test results mean without more context?

Hello, and thank you for your question. It is difficult to interpret the results accurately without a medical history, however, in general: - white cell count is within normal range, indicating no sign of infection or inflammation - hemoglobin and PCV are slightly high, which usually indicates mild dehydration. This can be due to not drinking much water for a few hours prior to the blood sample, or from fluid losses through vomiting or diarrhea - MCV is an indicator of red cell size, which is only relevant if the pet is anemic (which Coco is not). I hope this helps, and that Coco is doing okay!

Blood results always have to be interpreted with the results of a hands-on exam and medical history in mind. Numbers alone cannot give a diagnosis. Your veterinarian should have explained those results to you as he also did a clinical exam and knows why you went to the vet with your dog. That said I can give you a general idea: The lab was looking for blod parasites, but did not find any. This can mean that your dog is blood parasite free or just that in the sample they had, there were no parasites visible. This is not proof that your dog is parasite free, it just means they did not find any. The PCV is high, that means your dog is likely somewhat dehydrated. He also has too many neutrophils and too few lymphocytes which is most often a sign of infection. Your veterinarian should explain to you what he suspects your dog is suffering from. The blood parameters alone are just a small part of diagnosis and in your dog's case not very specific.

Sure thing. All values appear to be within normal limits. There are some suspected nucleated rbc's, but this doesn't really mean much since all over values are normal. Thanks for visiting Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach and If you have further questions or would like to go over your pets case more in detail feel free to repost with additional information (i.e. symptoms) about your pet Bubble. Best wishes and take care.

Much more information would be required in order to make any sense or use of blood results, a summary of what has been concerning you, her signs and symptoms and response to any previous treatment i would be required at a minimum. It is unusual to have a high RBC/HCT (more than normal red blood cells )and low MCH/MCHC (usually found when recovering from anaemia). This may indicate the red blood cell production process is gone wrong and an examination of the cells under a microscope by a specialist pathologist and possible bone marrow biopsy may be required. Occasionally accidental exposure to human medications used to promote blood production can produce similar results

Thank you for sending over the copies of Gonzie's blood work! Looking at the provided results, I see that his creatinine is a tiny bit elevated. This value increases with kidney damage or dehydration. I'd certainly recommend talking to his vet about rechecking his kidney function in a month or two, as well as running a urinalysis to see how well his kidneys are working to concentration his urine. The monocyte increase is extremely mild. I don't worry when this type of white blood cell increases a tiny bit while other white blood cell lines (especially the neutrophils and lymphocytes) are normal. Stress alone can trigger this minor elevation. The RDW helps to give the proportions of the red blood cells' size and volume. Again, this minor elevation does not seem to be significant. A 50% hematocrit is slightly elevated, which means that Gonzie has some extra red blood cells. I would much rather see too many red blood cells than too few! His blood volume could also be more concentrated if he's a bit dehydrated. Platelets can be challenging to read on CBCs since they can clump together, so the machine may read a clump of several platelets as just one single cell. In these cases, it's always useful to manually examine a blood smear under the microscope to determine if adequate numbers of platelets are present. Nothing on the provided lab work makes me terribly concerned at this moment, but I do think it's worth tracking his kidney values and confirming an accurate platelet count. I hope that everything goes well for Gonzie!

I can understand your concern when seeing abnormal blood findings for your pet. But no worries these are considered to be insignificant findings in and of themselves. You don't need to do any treatment for your pet whatsoever. The slightly elevated HCT means that your pet was had hemoconcentration, which means mildly concentrated red blood cells. Nothing significant. And the MCHC is a measure of how much hemoglobin your pets red blood cells are carrying. A mild decrease in this is also insignificant. I hope this helps and best wishes moving forward with your pet Snowball! Take care.

I can see the results, but I'm unable to see the reference ranges for each value which can vary based on the machine so it's a little difficult to say for certain what these changes could mean. It looks to me like the monocytes and lymphocytes (specific types of white blood cells) are a little low - this could be a stress response which is very normal for a dog having it's blood drawn in the hospital. Some dogs simply lie on the lower end of the reference range as well. I can't think of any disease where low lymphocytes and monocytes in the absence of other changes would be significant, and this would not raise a flag for possible cancer in my mind. Red cell distribution width (RDW) gives an idea of the average size of a red blood cell and mean cell hemoglobin concentration (MCH) tells how much hemoglobin is present in each cell - these parameters are really only significant when there is also anemia or low hematocrit. If you have other concerns you should definitely follow up with your vet - it's always easiest for the doctor who has examined the animal and is familiar with the case to interpret lab results!