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Pet‐specific care is all about managing risks. All animals have certain risks that pertain to their individual circumstances (see 1.1 Overview of Pet‐Specific Care). By acknowledging and prioritizing risks, we can craft meaningful personalized care plans for our patients (see 1.3 Personalized Care Plans).

For most pets, family history or breed predisposition is a significant contributor to disease susceptibility. This is true whether the pet is purebred or mixed‐breed. In many instances, when a pet is mixed‐breed and the parents have not been identified with certainty, it may be difficult to discern any type of predisposition without performing breed composition genetic testing. Whether purebred or mixed‐breed, both genotypic and phenotypic testing can be done for disease susceptibility.

Exposure risks constitute another significant contributor to disease susceptibility. For example, a pet exposed to many other pets will be at increased risk for infectious diseases and, potentially, parasite transmission. A dog that is taken for walks in wooded areas may be exposed to ticks that are enzootic to the region and may introduce tick‐related infections to the pet. A cat that is allowed to wander the neighborhood may be exposed to a variety of infectious diseases, as well as injury from vehicles, other pets, and wildlife.

Susceptibility to medical problems is also influenced by life stages. For example, an umbilical hernia is more likely to be congenital and evident in a juvenile pet, while most cases of hypothyroidism present during adulthood (see 4.1 Canine and Feline Life Stages).

A pet's gender as well as its neuter status also influence risk. Some diseases are sex limited in nature (such as prostatic disease in males or pyometra in females), but there are also sex predispositions for a variety of disorders. For example, there may be a modest sex predisposition to females regarding cutaneous lupus erythematosus, while adrenal sex hormone imbalance (alopecia X) may be more commonly diagnosed in males. This is different from disorders transmitted genetically on the sex chromosomes. For example, hemophilia is more often clinically evident in males because the condition is transmitted on the X chromosome as a sex‐linked recessive condition, and since males only have one X chromosome (the other is a Y chromosome), they manifest the condition; in females, with two X chromosomes, it would take two copies of the hemophilia mutation before the condition would be apparent. Neuter status also affects risk. Bitches spayed before their first estrus have a reduced prevalence of mammary cancers; neutered males have a lowered risk for prostatic hyperplasia (see 4.2 Gender‐Related Considerations).

Geography also plays a significant role in disease susceptibility, partially because it influences infectious diseases that are present in the area, or the vectors that are associated with their transmission. Accordingly, when creating personalized care plans, it is important to take into consideration whether or not the pet may travel outside the region.

Even conformation and nondisease traits can be associated with predisposition to disease. For example, cats with white fur may be at higher risk for developing squamous cell carcinoma; color dilution alopecia is more common in dogs with diluted coloring patterns, such as “blue” Dobermans.