Safe Surgery for Pets

Sorry this is late. I've been wrapped up in repainting my bathroom. This month I'm going to list some things you need to be sure and ask about when your pet is having surgery. This is one of the areas that most pet owners fret the most over and making sure your vet us up on all best techniques and equipment helps to make sure your pet has a safe and comfortable experience.


Pre-anesthetic Medications: These relax your pet and provide pain relief before surgery even starts.

Gas Anesthesia: This is the same anesthetic used in human hospitals and allows your pet to wake up faster as well as allow the doctor to adjust the anesthesia quickly and easily.

Anesthetic Monitoring: High tech equipment monitors your pet’s heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, oxygenation status, and respiratory rate. This also allows changes or adjustments in the anesthesia as needed.

Supplemental Heat: Because anesthetized pets can lose body heat supplemental heat may be provided in a variety of ways including a heated table or heated blankets and air mattresses.

Pain Medications: Make sure your pet is as comfortable as possible and will often be given as an injection during surgery as well as medication to go home on.

Aseptic Technique: Sterile surgical scrubbing is performed on the surgery site and only sterile instruments are used in surgery. The doctor also performs a sterile hand scrub as well as wearing surgical gowns, gloves, masks, and caps.

Pre-operative Blood Testing: At some places this testing is mandatory but if is optional it should still be offered and strongly recommended to make sure there is no obvious internal organ disease.