Surgery Service for Pets
We, at Tantallon Veterinary Hospital, know it can be scary when your pet is undergoing a surgical procedure.
Whether it be a routine, elective procedure like a neuter or spay, or a more extensive type of surgery such as an exploratory laporotomy or emergency surgery, we are here to answer any questions you may have.
What happens when my pet is having surgery?
Generally, your pet has a full examination upon arrival at the hospital. A small amount of blood is drawn by one of our veterinarians or technicians. The blood is analyzed to check for a variety of internal health parameters. This allows us to carefully choose which anesthetics and post operative pain medications are the safest for your pet. It also tells us if there is any trouble or ill health which may not be apparent on physical examination. When the blood test results are normal, we keep that information in our files. It can be accessed over the years to tell us what is normal for your pet and compare it to future test results.
Visit our page on pre-anesthetic blood work for more information.
Next, your pet will be given a small injection of a sedative. This accomplishes many things. It calms and relaxes a possibly nervous patient, it allows a reduction on the amount of general anesthetics that will be used for the procedure itself and eases the patient in and out of General Anesthetic gradually and sleepily.
Then, just prior to the surgery, an intravenous catheter is placed in your pet’s leg. This allows delivery of a general anesthetic injection as well as fluids during surgery. After the anesthetic injection is given, your pet is no longer awake or feeling anything. A tube is placed through the mouth into the trachea or ‘windpipe’. The tube is connected to an anesthetic machine that distributes oxygen and anesthetic into your pet for the entire surgical procedure. Your pet is monitored using oxygen, heart rate, and blood pressure monitors. A technician provides all nursing care including temperature regulation, anesthetic, and fluid monitoring.
Your pet is shaved in our treatment area and then moved to our surgery suite for his or her surgery. Our surgery suite is equipped with heated surgery tables, state of the art anesthetic machines, monitoring devices and lighting equipment. Once the procedure is performed your pet wakes up with pain control injections in his/her system on a warming recovery system called a Bair Hugger. with a veterinary technician by your pets side providing all nursing needs.
Once your pet is awake and can stand, dogs will be taken outside for bodily needs, and cats will be offered a litter box.
Your pet’s safety and comfort are of the utmost importance to us so attention to every detail is made. If you have any special requests, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate you.
