A clear, non-invasive look inside your pet, captured in seconds and read by our doctors during your visit.
Yorktown Heights, NY • Dogs, Cats & Exotics • See our Google reviews
When a pet is limping, coughing, straining, or just “not themselves,” the problem is almost always something you can’t see from the outside. Waiting it out can turn a simple fix into surgery. Digital X-rays let our team look inside today, without sedation for most pets, and without a single incision.
What Are Digital X-Rays?
Digital radiography uses a small, carefully controlled dose of X-rays to create high-resolution images of your pet’s bones, organs, and soft tissue. Unlike old-fashioned film, the images appear on-screen in seconds, so our veterinarians can zoom, adjust contrast, and share findings with you in the same appointment.
Why Are Digital X-Rays Important?
Early Detection: Fractures, masses, bladder stones, swallowed objects, heart enlargement, and pneumonia are all things we can see on film before they become emergencies.
Lower Radiation Dose: Digital sensors need a fraction of the radiation old film required, safer for your pet and for our team.
Faster Answers: Images load on-screen in seconds, so we review findings with you during the same visit instead of asking you to come back.
Non-Invasive: No incisions, no anesthesia for most patients, and no overnight stay, your pet goes home the same day.
What to Expect at a Digital X-Ray Appointment
Before Your Visit
For abdominal X-rays we may ask you to withhold food for 8–12 hours so the stomach is empty and the images are clearer, water is fine. Bring your pet on a leash or in a carrier, and any prior imaging or records from another clinic.
During the Appointment
Exam & Symptom Review: Our veterinarian performs a physical exam and pinpoints which areas to image based on your pet’s symptoms.
Imaging: Trained technicians position your pet with gentle, hands-on handling. Most pets tolerate X-rays awake; for painful, anxious, or exotic patients we may recommend mild sedation for their comfort and safety.
On-Screen Review & Plan: Your doctor reviews the images with you in the room, explains what they show, and builds a treatment plan, whether that’s medication, rest, follow-up imaging, or a referral for surgery, MRI, or CT.
Follow-Up and Aftercare
Most patients go home the same day with clear written instructions. If we find something that needs a specialist, we send the digital images directly to them so you don’t have to repeat the study.
How Often Should Your Pet Have Digital X-Rays?
X-rays aren’t part of every routine visit, we use them when symptoms or age call for a closer look. As a general guide:
- Puppies & kittens: When symptoms warrant, limping after a fall, a suspected ingestion, persistent coughing, or vomiting that won’t resolve.
- Adult pets: Any time we need to investigate pain, lameness, breathing changes, abdominal swelling, or before a planned surgery or dental procedure.
- Senior pets: More frequently as part of monitoring arthritis, heart disease, or cancer, and often as a baseline during senior wellness visits.
Your veterinarian will recommend the right imaging schedule for your pet based on species, age, and what we’re watching.
Schedule Digital X-Rays in Yorktown Heights, NY
Heights Hospital for Animals offers same-visit digital X-ray imaging for dogs, cats, and exotic pets, rabbits, reptiles, guinea pigs, ferrets, and hamsters, right here in Yorktown Heights, NY. If something feels off, don’t wait and wonder; let us take a look.
