Do you know how to respond if your pet gets injured? First aid is essential knowledge to have, whether it is for people or animals. You can respond quickly to any small or big accidents to prevent the situation from becoming worse. Of course, always ask for help.
Last week, I was thrilled to attend a free first aid course for small animals (cats and dogs), hosted by Warren House Veterinary Centre Ltd. We have been using their services since we had Mabel during the lockdown. It is a family-owned independent veterinary clinic focusing on small animal care. They have equipment upgrades and renovations within the practice as well as staff training and introduction of new procedures and diagnostic modalities. They offer a wide range of keyhole procedures, eye operations as well as orthopaedic procedures and endoscopic diagnostics.
It was a two-hour course exploring the First Aid Kit for pets, warning signs of bleeding, learning how to check for a pulse, muzzle your pets, what to do for choking and administering CPR to dogs/cats.
The course is run in small groups (we had four people turn up but were supposed to have six), with hands-on experience using a specially designed dog manikin and other practical training aids.
Before this, I did not know that they sell First Aid Kits for pets. It is not something I thought about getting at all! I had a look and found that pet shops sell them as well as outlets online, but not every kit is useful. They suggest having a few elastic non-woven self-adhesive bandage wraps in it. Warren House does sell the kits with it if you are interested.
My opinion is that first aid kits for pets and humans are quite similar. You can probably make up a kit yourself by adding a tick remover, tweezers, CPR mask and elastic non-woven self-adhesive bandage wraps.
What are the warning signs of bleeding? Check their gums! This is one of the first few signs of bleeding if their gums are pale or white. They will look lethargic, have cold extremities, laboured breathing and in the end, collapse.
During the course, we also learned how to spot the amount of blood loss. It is not easy judging using your eye! So how much blood do small animals have? A dog should have 90ml per kg, whilst a cat is about 60ml per kg. Mabel weighs 32 kg, hence she has about 2780ml. If she bleeds one drop per second, it is considered dangerous. To be honest, it is hard to judge the level of blood loss. It is best to stop/control the bleeding by applying a lot of pressure or using a tourniquet, call for help, keep the animal warm and bring them to the vet as soon as possible.
There are two ways of checking for a dog’s pulse: from the inside of its rear leg near its mid-thigh or under its tongue. As for your makeshift muzzle, get a shoelace/scarf/bandage, tie a loose knot and loop it over their mouth, pull it and tie a knot under the ears and over the head.
Relieving choking in animals is quite controversial. There are many suggested ways of helping an animal, unlike for a human. Depending on the animal, you can try to reach into the dog’s mouth with tweezers or forceps to grasp the item and remove it. Or lay the dog on his/her back, use your thumbs under their jaw and push it toward the mouth. Anyway, it is worth googling and watching a video on it.
CPR is similar to humans. Check for a response, check for breathing (pulse) and start CPR while calling for help. Lock your arms and do the compression 1/3 chest depth on their side, just after their front legs. For flat-chested dogs such as a bulldog or a pug, they should be on their back. If there is a second person available, do two breaths to 30 compressions.
This was such a useful session for a dog owner. I learned so much from this first aid course. If your vet offers this course, I would recommend it!