Preparing for surgery at home

No food after 9pm the night before surgery or breakfast the morning of, to avoid the risk of vomiting while under the influence of anesthesia.

Your pet can have access to water.

Unless otherwise stated, drop off time is between 7:30am and 9:00am. A receptionist will go over the estimate with you and get authorization and contact information.

Preanesthetic Blood Work

We suggest that you have preanesthetic blood work run prior to having surgery on your pet. This can be done as a Technician’s appointment and is suggested at least a week in advance of the scheduled procedure. 

Procedures before surgery

All pets receive a thorough physical exam before surgery. If your pet has not had blood work run prior to surgery, we can run a modified blood panel in house to help assess blood components and organ function to help confirm that your pet’s body can process the anesthetic. 

We use a two part anesthetic protocol where we administer a sedative prior to inducing anesthesia. The sedative is used to relax your pet and help reduce the dose of anesthetic given, as well as counteract unwanted side effects from the anesthesia. The second part is a short acting anesthetic to facilitate intubation. After intubation your pet is maintained on Isoflorane gas.  Every pet is an individual and we adjust accordingly.

Monitoring

A Certified Veterinary Technician is assigned to each surgical patient. They are responsible for monitoring your pet and assisting the Doctor performing the surgery. Surgical monitoring via a machine that streams their EKG(heart waves), measures SpO2(amount of oxygen in the blood), takes a blood pressure and also monitors the breaths they are taking. 

An intravenous catheter (IV) is placed to provide access for medications, if needed, during surgery as well as fluids given during the procedure. 

Recovery and Home Care

We like to keep patients with us for a period of time after surgery to make sure they are doing well and waking from the anesthesia. Generally speaking you can expect for your pet to stay with us until at least 3:30pm. We will call you after the procedure with an update.

The surgical technician will call you and go over any questions you may have about home/after care. All of our surgical patients go home with written instructions to help you with home after care. 

When you take your pet home they will be awake but most likely a little groggy or slow. When you bring them home it is best to keep them in a quiet and warm part of your house where they can relax. If your dog or cat lives outdoors only we suggest you plan on keeping them inside for the night. You can offer your pet 1/4 to 1/2 of their normal evening meal depending on the type of procedure your pet has had. 

You should expect your pet to be back to normal or mostly normal by the next morning.