There’s a lot of buzz these days about how routine health exams can find abnormalities before bigger problems develop. Part of that preventive care includes measuring blood pressure — your pet’s, that is.

Blood pressure, whether in people or in pets, is the force that blood exerts as it flows through vessels. If it’s too high, creating hypertension, it can cause problems, such as blindness, seizures or stroke-like conditions. In some cases, hypertension can even be deadly.

Primary hypertension is more common in people. In our four-legged friends, hypertension is usually the result of another problem, like kidney disease, high thyroid levels in cats and adrenal disease or diabetes in dogs.

So look at hypertension as a red alert. Finding the underlying cause could save your pet’s life.