Procedures for Surgeries/Dentals:
• The night before your pet’s procedure, withhold all food and treats after midnight. Water may be left out until you bring your pet in for drop off.
• If you are currently administering any medications daily, do not withhold the morning doses unless otherwise instructed by the doctor/technician.
A surgery technician will contact you the day before your pet's surgery for pre-checkin questions, to review your patient's treatment plan for the next day, and answer any questions you may have. If we are unable to pre-check in your pet for surgery the day before, please allow 10-15 minutes for check-in the morning of your pet's procedure.
The morning of your pet's procedure, please make arrangements for your pet to be admitted into our hospital between 7am and 7:30am. At check-in, you will need to sign an anesthesia consent form.
We try to text you when your pet is being induced for anesthesia so that are aware of your pet's status. The surgery doctor will call you after your pet's surgery is complete when your pet is in recovery. Most surgery patients are ready to go home between 4:00 and 5:00 pm with all discharge instructions
and any needed medications.
PRE-ANESTHETIC BLOOD TESTING INFORMATION
Our greatest concern is the well being of your pet. Before putting your pet under anesthesia, we routinely perform a full physical examination.
We also highly recommend and sometimes require that a Pre-Anesthetic Blood Profile be performed on
all pets’ undergoing anesthesia to maximize patient safety.
The Pre-Anesthetic Blood Profile helps alert our surgeon to the presence of dehydration, anemia,
infection, diabetes and/or kidney or liver disease that could complicate the procedure. These conditions
may not be detected without a pre-anesthetic profile thus not allowing for the most appropriate and
safest anesthetic regime to be administered. These tests are similar to those your own physician would run if you were to undergo anesthesia. In addition, these tests may be useful if your
pet’s health changes to develop faster, more accurate diagnoses and treatments.
*State of the art equipment enables us to perform the pre-anesthetic blood profile at our hospital and we are committed to making this technology available to our patients.
The Authorization Form you will sign on your pet’s surgery date will offer pre-anesthetic blood work.
The Pre-Anesthetic Profile which includes:
• CBC: PCV (Anemia), White Blood Cell Count (Infection) & Red Blood Cell Count
(Anemia/Bleeding Disorder), Platelet Count (Clotting Disorder)
• Profile: BUN and Creatinine (Kidney), ALKP and ALT (Liver), Glucose (Sugar), Total Protein
(Dehydration), and Electrolytes (Imbalance).
On the Feline Patient Authorization Form, our feline owners will see a FeLV/FIV Test option. We highly
recommend this test be preformed on all feline patients at least once in their lives because Feline
Leukemia and Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (Feline Aids) are viruses for which no cure exists. If your pet goes outside, we recommend administering the Feline Leukemia vaccine as well. Please
ask questions if you would like to learn more about Feline Leukemia and Feline Aids.
We realize surgery and anesthesia are scary for both the owner and patient and we attempt to make
surgery day as safe and comfortable for all involved. The physical examination and blood work done
prior to any surgical procedure allows us to best minimize anesthetic and surgical risks and maximize
patient safety.
Anesthetic Procedures & Risks
We use a combination of pre-anesthetic medications/injectable and/or inhalant anesthetics to achieve
optimum levels of anesthesia that are safe for your pet.
For any procedure your pet is anesthetized and then intubated (insertion of a tube into the trachea or
wind pipe). This will ensure that your pet is able to receive oxygen at all times and prevents aspiration of
any fluids into the lungs.
Anesthesia is maintained with a gas anesthetic, Isoflurane, which is very safe and is not metabolized by the body. This allows us to have more control over anesthetic depth and it is less
irritating to the airways.
Monitoring & Pain Management-Monitoring of patients during anesthesia is done in two ways.
First, a veterinary nurse is with your pet continuously from beginning of anesthesia to recovery.
Second, we have a computerized monitor that records heart rate, pulse rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels, respiration, ECG, core and rectal temperature.
Our hospital strongly believes in compassionate, quality, medical care for our patients. As a result, all surgery patients will receive pain management before, during and after surgery.
Additionally, pain medication may be prescribed home. Additional information will be given at discharge. We hope this program will reduce any discomfort experienced and aid in a quicker
recovery.
Intravenous Catheterization & Fluids
It is our hospital standard that every surgical patient has an IV catheter in place before surgery and is given intravenous fluids during the entire surgical procedure. These IV fluids help provide
support to the circulatory system, maintain proper blood pressure, prevent dehydration, and aid in a quicker recovery from anesthesia.