Pet First Aid: It's more than Life or Death

Everyday across America, thousands of pets are injured in accidents. Pets can choke on tennis balls, be hit by cars, get sick from household poisons or suffer from heat illness or exposure to the cold. If undetected, many medical conditions can also cause life threatening problems in just a few hours. Unfortunately, there is no 911 for pets, and injured animals are in the hands of well-meaning but untrained owners. Your emergency veterinarian can help save your pets life, but you are charged with the awesome task of assessing and transporting your pet properly. Without training, most would not know where to start, but there is an option. Pet First Aid/CPR training can help the average pet owner respond with confidence in emergencies as well as detect many medical conditions before they become emergencies.

See how you might respond to the following scenario: Your dog, feeling frisky, bolts from the door when you arrive home from work. To your horror, before you can say a word, a car in the road strikes her. What would you do? You approach your pet who appears unconscious, call out her name and she does not respond. You again stroke her coat and call their name. Nothing.

What would you do?

As you will learn in a Pet First Aid/CPR class, your priorities are these:

1. Maintain life. Assess the ABC's, Airway, Breathing and Circulation. Very similar to steps in human CardioPulmonary Resuscitation, you must immediately detect any life-threatening insults. This is what you find. Your pet is breathing at a rate of 60 shallow times per minute and pulse rate is around 150 beats per minute. You know that these results are abnormally increased and probably a response to shock.
2. Secondary Assessment and Transport. Rapid transport to an emergency vet is paramount now but you worry about spinal cord injuries. While you carry out the head to tail assessment to detect further injury, you have instructed a neighbor to retrieve an appropriate sized board on which you will place the pet for transport to maintain spinal alignment. Your quick assessment reveals a growing pool of blood that appears to be coming from the left rear leg but no other obvious injuries. You immediately apply direct pressure with sterile gauze and are able to control the bleeding. After placing your pet on a backboard, you arrive at the animal hospital 45 minutes after the initial accident.

It is a terrifying prospect, but it happens every day. Your proper response is vital. If the animal above was moved unnecessarily, she could have suffered permanent spinal cord damage. If the bleeding were not controlled properly, shock would rapidly be followed by death. However, it is more than life or death training. You should be intimately familiar with your pet's normal, everyday assessment and findings. On a regular basis you should complete a head to tail survey including heart rate, respirations, temperature, capillary refill, behavior, and hydration. Learning these assessment tools is easy and the focus of a good Pet First Aid/CPR course. Many medical conditions make themselves known in subtle ways before a true emergency develops.

By knowing what is normal for your pet, you will be better prepared to recognize these changes. While training such as this is NEVER intended to take the place of professional veterinarian care, every pet lover should be ready before an emergency occurs. After all, if you're not, who will be?

Pet First Aid CPR classes are now being scheduled in the Tampa Bay area. You may register for the next course by calling Prevention Priority at (813) 657-1194 or (800) 397-4102. Info or e-mail:www.cprfirst.com.