Ensuring peace of mind with a safe, caring, and medically-supervised stay for your companion.
Your dog hesitates at the bottom step instead of bounding up like always. Your cat eyes the windowsill she used to leap onto without a second thought, then decides against it and curls up on the floor instead. Nothing happened. No yelp, no visible injury, just a small hesitation that is easy to explain away as a one-off. But pets rarely announce joint pain outright, and the families who know their pets best are usually the first to catch these small shifts, long before they turn into a limp that cannot be ignored.
That instinct to pay attention is exactly why families across Oakland Park, Wilton Manors, and Fort Lauderdale have trusted Oakland Park Animal Hospital with their pets’ joints, bones, and mobility since 1987. We are a doctor-owned practice, not a corporate chain, and under Dr. Spencer Ratnoff’s 40 years of hands-on care, that difference shows up in how we handle something as personal as your dog’s stiff hip or your cat’s guarded back leg. Your pet is our pet here, and our surgical team treats every limp, every fracture, and every aching joint with the same care and patience we would want for our own animals at home.
Every orthopedic case that walks through our doors comes with its own story, and we have heard nearly all of them over the decades. The senior Labrador who has simply slowed down with age. The young dog who took one wrong jump off the bed and yelped. The bearded dragon whose owner noticed a subtle change in how she was gripping her perch. Osteoarthritis, in particular, has a way of hiding in plain sight; according to a study published by the American Animal Hospital Association, it is the most commonly diagnosed joint disease in dogs, largely because pets are so good at quietly compensating for pain that owners often do not recognize what they are seeing until the condition has progressed.
We have built our approach around listening first. When a pet parent tells us their dog has been “just acting a little off,” we take that seriously, because after four decades of caring for the same families’ pets, generation after generation, we have learned that the people who love these animals are often the ones who notice trouble the earliest. A thorough hands-on exam, a conversation about what has changed at home, and, when needed, diagnostic imaging give us the full picture before we ever talk about next steps.
We will never pretend to be something we are not. For orthopedic cases that call for advanced surgery, whether that is a complex fracture repair or a torn ligament, we bring in a specialist who works directly with our team here in our own hospital, so your pet never has to leave the place they already know and trust to get that higher level of surgical care. And on the rare occasion a case truly needs resources beyond what we can offer, we lean on the same trusted referral relationships we have built with local specialty and emergency hospitals over the years, guiding families to exactly where they need to go without adding confusion to an already worrying day.
This is what it means to be a family practice rather than a franchise: we would rather walk a pet parent through their options honestly than rush them toward a procedure that is not right for their situation. Many of the pets we see for orthopedic concerns are older, and we lean on our senior pet care approach to support them, because a stiff, aging body deserves patience, not just a diagnosis.
Advanced orthopedic care, especially when a specialist or surgery is involved, can understandably raise questions about cost. We talk through those questions honestly and offer flexible financing options, including Cherry and CareCredit, so your pet’s treatment plan is guided by what they need, not by what you can pay upfront.
We tell every pet parent the same thing: getting older is not supposed to mean getting sore. A dog that is “slowing down” or a cat that “just sleeps more now” may in fact be quietly living with joint pain that could be made more comfortable with the right care. Regular wellness exams give us a chance to catch these changes early, before they become the kind of limp that cannot be ignored, and we especially watch for this in larger breeds and pets moving into their senior years.
Our exotic patients need this same attentiveness, just with a different kind of expertise. Birds, reptiles, and small mammals carry weight and move through the world so differently from dogs and cats that their bone and joint health calls for a specific kind of training, and our team has spent years learning the particulars of caring for exotic companions the same way we would any other member of the family who walks through our doors.
We did not earn the trust of this community overnight, and we do not take it for granted now. Many of the families who bring their pets to our veterinary team today are on their third, fourth, or even fifth dog with us, a kind of loyalty that only comes from years of showing up for people during the hardest and happiest moments of their pets’ lives. That history matters to us, and it shapes how carefully we handle something as important as your pet’s ability to run, jump, and simply move through their day without pain.
If you have noticed your pet limping, hesitating, or just seeming a little less like themselves lately, do not wait to see if it passes on its own. Contact our office today, and let our family look after yours the way Oakland Park has trusted us to since 1987.
Schedule a visit with our compassionate team and let’s partner in your pet’s lifelong well-being.
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