Canberra Veterinary Emergency Services

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Canberra Veterinary Emergency Services

Compassionate Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care for your pet, when you need it the most.
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Independently owned and operated, Canberra's newest after hours Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Service is located in Gungahlin and services the ACT and all surrounding areas. We are open:

24 hours on weekends
24 hours all Public Holidays

We stay up all night so your pet can receive the very best veterinary care when they need it.

21/06/2024

Yes, we are a vet clinic and we are lucky to have doggos as a part of our job every day!
But we couldn’t ignore the , as it means we get to have Patrick and Ruben in the office again!
Beloved fur sons of our Vet Manager Megan, these boys are basically official mascots of CVES. They are doGtors for our team! Only one boop kiss from Patrick and we are ready to take on the world!

Does your workplace welcome this wonderful celebration?

17/06/2024

Emergency and urgent care

If you ever had to visit our clinic, you may have heard our team referring to the “triage concept” as the system our daily operations are based on. Using this system means we are directing our resources into critical emergency situations that need them the most. Looking more deeply into this concept, you can unravel two clinical sides of this complex functioning system. We are talking about emergency and urgent care.

For someone who doesn’t have knowledge of veterinary medicine (or medicine in general), these terms might sound synonymous, as both refer to situations where medical attention is needed. Yet, there is a difference.

Emergency veterinary care refers to life-and-death situations. It is needed in cases where without immediate veterinary intervention a patient's life will be lost or will be significantly compromised. And by that, we mean patients who are presenting with breathing issues, or severe specific medical conditions (Heart Failure, bloat, blocked urinary tracks etc.). Sometimes patients present so compromised they are deemed dead upon arrival and require CPR. These are the cases our clinic was initially created to see.

Urgent care refers to emergency situations where a patient's wellbeing and comfort are compromised, yet there is no immediate threat to life. We are talking about cases where an animal has hurt their limbs or suffers from minor fight wounds. We are also referring to cases like kennel cough or ear infections. In such situations patients still can be in pain, not feeling well or very stressed. Meaning they need veterinary assistance.

Sometimes, when these two categories present together during busy periods, urgent care cases (after being deemed stable) may end up waiting to see a veterinarian. This happens because we have facilities and a wonderful team who can keep such patients comfortable and looked after while they are waiting to see a vet. Yet, we fully acknowledge that it can be hard for pet parents who have to wait. That's why we decided to modify our veterinary team roster and their roles in our clinic.

From now on, pending the availability of our wonderful clinicians we will have dedicated Urgent Care Veterinarians assisting the team, the patients, and our clients. Such adjustment will give us an opportunity to evenly spread our resources. We will be able to save the lives of those who need us immediately, yet not compromise people's plans and commitments by extended wait times. As we are still trialing this concept, please be kind and patient with us. As always, we are trying to grow and implement new procedures into our daily functioning to ensure all pets and humans visiting our clinic are well looked after.

Thank you for being with us during this amazing journey!

09/06/2024

Dear Canberra community!

As with any other Public Holiday, our reliable clinic will be open today to address your needs and concerns. While we sincerely hope you and your pets will have a lovely and safe day, please don't hesitate to call 6225 7257 if you need advice. Our professional and compassionate Client Care and Nurse teams will be able to assist you. We are here to support you and reassure you.

Stay safe and stay warm during this cold weekend!

Kindest regards,
Canberra Veterinary Emergency Service.

01/06/2024

Let’s talk about the uncomfortable...

But first, let’s meet Audrey, a young adorable Shih Tzu. We had the pleasure of helping this beautiful young lady and her family recently. Audrey presented to our clinic with rather weird symptoms, to say the least. To begin with, she couldn’t walk properly. For a teenage girl like her, an acute onset of loss of mobility is quite concerning. On top of that, Audrey’s mum told us about a concerning episode she had at home, where Audrey came into the house from the outdoors to lay on her mum's lap but after getting up she simply collapsed. Audrey couldn't get up, laying still on her side. This episode prompted her family to rush into the emergency.

Upon arrival, we had to do a thorough physical exam to help us understand the cause of Audrey’s symptoms. While her heart rate, respiratory rate, and temperature were completely normal, two key points made us very concerned. Firstly, Audrey was ataxic, meaning she had very limited control over her limbs resulting in very wobbly walking (it often can be described as acting “drunk”). Secondly, her mentation was altered, and she was what we call “hyperaesthetic”, which means she was incredibly sensitive to any touch. Audrey was going through weird changes between being super dull and then becoming super sensitive. It was very concerning.

After this initial exam, we were able to determine that whatever was affecting her was affecting her both physically and mentally. We had an idea... But, our team had to discuss this idea with Audrey’s family first as result of this sensitive conversation would affect our diagnostics and further treatment plan. We needed to talk about...marijuana.

As an after-hours emergency vet in Canberra, we are fairly familiar with this type of toxicity. A lot of pet parents will call the clinic and talk us through very typical symptoms (altered mentation, incoordination, listlessness, dilated pupils and urinary incontinence), but unfortunately a lot of people will not present to us due to a lot of stigmas. That’s why we praise Audrey’s family, as they had their suspicions regarding cannabis because they live in an area where using this recreational substance is very well known. As Audrey spent significant time outdoors being the young active dog she is, her family had their reservations regarding possibly consuming plants growing at nearby properties.

We had a very efficient and detailed conversation with Audrey’s family, who provided us with all the needed information about previous history. As a conclusion of all the investigations, we decided to do a quick multi-drug urine test to make sure that there is nothing else we should be concerned about. We confirmed our diagnosis quickly after that. This allowed us to tailor a treatment plan suitable for Audrey and her symptoms. She spent the night with us in the hospital receiving supportive care and professional clinical monitoring to be successfully discharged the following morning.

As veterinary professionals, we are not here to judge or question anyone ever. We are here to provide animals with the after-hours immediate treatment they need. That’s why we are using this opportunity to remind everyone who experiences such a veterinary emergency to please be solution-focused with us. Talking about recreational drugs that can affect your animals can be daunting, but it needs to be done so they can be helped. For animals it is not fun or relaxing. For them this experience is scary, confusing and can result in long-term serious health damage.

ACT Government decriminalized possession, usage and growth of small amounts of cannabis. So please don’t hesitate to present to a vet so they can help your animal. Just please make sure to do it safely and in accordance to the law. (More handy information can be found here https://www.act.gov.au/cannabis/home )

We also thank Audrey’s family for giving us an opportunity to talk about this toxicity and make more people around Canberra aware how much it can affect our animals.

26/05/2024

Dear community!

Our clinic will be open 24 hours today in case you need help.
If you are worried about your pet, please do not hesitate to call us on 6225 7257 and discuss your situation with our experienced Client Care and Nurse teams.

As always, we cannot thank you enough for being kind and respectful towards our team who spend this long weekend looking after animals in need.

Stay safe!

Kindest regards,
Canberra Veterinary Emergency Service.

18/05/2024

Dear pet parents of Canberra!

Unfortunately, we are experiencing a lot of difficulties with our roster today. Due to multiple staff sicknesses, we tried our best to remain open and cover the shifts that needed to be covered. We thank our amazing team who came together and picked up some extra hours in order to help animals and people in need.

Yet, we are still understaffed in our veterinary department. We do not have either consulting or procedures veterinarians rostered today, meaning 1 hospital vet will be responsible for the entire patient load (walk-ins, GP veterinarians transfers, and already hospitalised patients). As this is a lot of pressure for only 1 person, we have to limit our consultation capacity for today. This will mean we are only seeing critical patients today.

But please, do not worry. Our wonderful and skilled nurse and client care teams are here for you if you need veterinary assistance.

Do not hesitate to call us at 6225 7257 to have a detailed conversation with our team members. We will listen to your concerns and create a plan together to help you determine what is the best course of action for you and your pet.

As always, we thank you for being kind and respectful towards our hard-working team.

Stay safe!

03/05/2024

What’s the key to any labrador’s heart?
Of course, peanut butter!

27/04/2024

Today is World Veterinary Day.

Today we celebrate and acknowledge all the incredible work of our beloved doGtors. We thank them for dedicating their lives to helping animals.

Being a veterinarian is not just a job, it is a calling. And the reality of it is sometimes very challenging. So, we want today to be about recognition of the commitment that all veterinarians have toward improving the lives of our pets. Long hours, challenging conversations, complex procedures, accompanying families during last goodbyes, and many many more things. They all can chip little pieces from human hearts. But then the support of colleagues, the gratitude of pet owners, and the improvement of patients help those hearts heal.

Veterinarians are a special kind of people. Unique in so many ways. Always selfless, compassionate, resilient, gentle, affectionate, caring and thoughtful.
While taking care of our precious vets every day, we wanted today to be special. So we decided to sit down and have a cuppa. Our team prepared everything for a little tea and relaxation time together.

So please don’t hesitate to celebrate with us by leaving a comment below!
Your kind words will make this day even better!

24/04/2024

Lest we forget

We take time today to remember those who served and are still serving our country. We honor their selfless sacrifice to the country we all love.

Whilst our team members are not able to participate in today’s services, they are dedicating their time to honouring the community’s need for veterinary assistance.

Our clinic will be open 24 hours today till 8 AM on Friday 26th of April. If you need veterinary assistance, don’t hesitate to call us on 6225 7257 and speak with our compassionate Client Care and Nurse teams.

Stay safe!

22/04/2024

Amy, Carly, Eloise, Jane, Lana, Laura, Kim, Paula and Steph.

These names belong to those kind and compassionate voices you hear when contacting our clinic seeking help.
Their caring and understanding advice is how your experience with CVES starts.
Their warm and tailored approach upon your arrival is how you get to meet CVES.
Their support and check-ins during your awaiting of the consult is how CVES cares for its clients.
Their lovely chats during your discharge are the last impression you have from visiting CVES.

They are our Client Care team and this week we celebrate their appreciation week. We celebrate them and their hard work. Their incomparable and priceless input ensures our clinic is a safe haven for everyone who needs help.
We are proud to know how amazing and knowledgeable our team is. We are grateful that they chose to be a part of CVES and contribute their time and knowledge to developing the best client experience.

We congratulate all Veterinary Receptionists in the industry! You are simply amazing!
Sincerely and with lots of gratitude,

Canberra Veterinary Emergency Service team.

16/04/2024

You will NEVER believe what happened to us!

Our team just participated in a patient story that looked like a detective with unexpected plot twists (well, just one but very interesting!). Winnie the beagle was the main character of this suspense. She presented with her worried parents due to very generic yet worrying symptoms.

It seemed like an ordinary evening, where Winnie had her dinner and then decided to have a bit of a play with her siblings. They even enjoyed some rawhide chews, but then something happened to Winnie. Just like that within 10 minutes she changed, squealing in pain. She was very unsettled, and especially tense when her tummy was touched. So, her parents decided to do her best by presenting to our practice.

Upon arrival, our team had a detailed conversation with Winnie's parents. We truly believe that the owners’ input is one of the most critical points in initial treatment as their perception gives veterinary teams great guidance in which treatment plan is the most optimal for the patient. That’s how we learned the next chapter in Winnie’s detective book. She can be a bit of a typical beagle, loving to nibble on things she is not supposed to (like plastic, baskets, or yarn) and play with things that are not originally designed for play (like a pincushion earlier in the day). Considering these important clues, we knew what was the plan.

Radiographs! Winnie’s habits, her behavior and her breed made us suspect two possibilities – food bloat or foreign body. Proceeding with this accurate and quick method of diagnostics would give you answers straight away. Winnie was promptly sedated and we took some images. But! Our team faced the most mind-blowing plot twist we have seen in a while (if not ever!). Winnie had a huge sewing needle lodged in her back! Yes, there were a lot of surprised “Oh!-s” in the viewing room!

It was extremely surprising and made Winnie one very lucky dog. If the needle had been positioned anywhere else (or at a different angle!) rather than close to the abdomen we wouldn’t have been able to notice it! Not just that, but also the fact that the needle did not damage the spine! Simply incredible luck! So now our priorities changed completely (also, alongside we did confirm there was no bloat or foreign body…). Informing Winnie’s family of this absolutely mind-blowing culminating moment, we had a quick and efficient plan on board for taking the needle out. Which we proceeded to do later that night and discharged Winnie the following morning after monitoring her in the hospital overnight.

We still think about this absolutely crazy plot twist! Just another story that proves how unpredictable the world of emergency can be!

07/04/2024

UPD We are booked out! Thank you!

Welcome to a new project by CVES!

As experienced ECC veterinary professionals, we decided it is important to share our knowledge with pet parents. That’s why we designed short, yet informative First Aid and Triage training for pet owners. Using simple everyday terms we will be able to explain what situations are an emergency and how to act during those.
Our presenters Client Care Manager Leisa and Nurse Assistant Manager Eric will be able to also teach you basic First Aid you can perform on your pets to ensure their trip to the vet is as comfortable as possible.

We will use this opportunity to fundraise for the hardworking team ACT Pet Crisis Support who dedicate their time and effort to help pet parents in need. All funds gathered through tickets will be donated to them after the event.

Having HUGE success in the past 3 days, we only have 2 spots remaining!
Thank you for your ongoing and wonderful support! It makes our team incredibly inspired and gives us the strength to work harder on more needed and interesting project for the Canberra community!

https://www.facebook.com/events/816827217147364/

31/03/2024

Happy Easter!

While we are having a busy weekend, we make sure our team still gets to enjoy little pleasures of traditional CVES Easter Hunt! (Which may be quite competitive sometimes! 😁)

We are lucky to be spoiled by our lovely clients who bring us even more choccies, lovely team at Paws to Remember who dropped us not one but three huge bags of Easte eggs and our friends at Gungahlin Veterinary Hospital who gifted us a 1 KG bunny!

We hope everyone stays safe this Easter!

🐣

Sincerely,
CVES team
(Slightly on a sugar rush)

27/03/2024

Dear pet parents,

As our friends and colleagues are about to close their doors for Easter, we are reaching out with a traditional reminder that we will be open. Our qualified and compassionate team is here for you if your pet needs any assistance.

We will open on Thursday the 28th of March at 6PM and will remain open 24 hours until Tuesday the 2nd of April 8AM. If you need any assistance, simply call us on 6225 7257 to have a chat with our Client Care or Nurse team members.

As we never know what walks through our doors, please keep a close eye on our social media. We will keep you posted regarding any workflow-impacting events.

We hope everyone gets to have a cozy and lovely long weekend! As always, we thank you for your patience and respect towards our team who will spend this holiday working hard to ensure all pets receive gold-standard patient care.

Sincerely,

Canberra Veterinary Emergency Service team.

20/03/2024

Meet Chris.

Chris is our lovely Operations Coordinator. He is one of those employees who doesn't get to meet our clients much, but without his hard work, none of our front-of-the-house or clinical procedures would work as smooth as they do.
As any other employee of CVES, Chris has his own passions, and desires and is working hard to make a difference in our community.
This goes beyond just being a part of our team. This month Chris decided to raise awareness about Mental Health issues.
He will be rocking a mullet to help Dog Institute raise much-needed funds for real-life changes and future Mental Health research. Unfortunately, these days challenges Australians face are very hard. This results in 9 people in Australia dying by su***de every day.

Help Chris make a difference by donating to his rocking mullet here

https://www.mulletsformentalhealth.org.au/fundraisers/chriswhitton/mulletsformentalhealth2024

13/03/2024

Beanie and consequences of his curiosity

Everyone, please meet Beanie! The most adorable, active and curious little beagle boy. We had a pleasure meeting Beanie recently after he experienced a rather unusual yet still dangerous emergency...

As veterinary professionals, we are used to seeing all kinds of toxicities and investigating situations where pets (but let’s be honest mostly dogs...) eat something they are not supposed to. Generally, being very typical things like chocolate, ham, socks, un**es or personal hygiene supplies, sometimes patients do surprise us with their choice of... cuisine...?

Beanie chewed on his mum’s inhaler! And while at first, you might think there is not much danger in chewing these objects (as long as they are not swallowed) ... unfortunately, such encounters are considered an emergency.

Active ingredient in the inhaler Beanie chewed is called Albuterol. It is used for people who have asthma. To ease people’s breathing, albuterol influences their beta-adrenergic receptors. When medication interferes with these receptors it results in immediate muscle relaxation. Basically, it helps the lungs to “open up” and allows patient to breathe better. Unfortunately, Albuterol has side effects as well. As it influences beta-adrenergic receptors it also influences adrenalin l levels in the body. Too much medication can cause sudden increase of adrenaline. Generally, this hormone is produced in our bodies when we experience stress. It helps us breathe better, but at the same time it makes our heart beat faster (called tachycardia).

As inhalers are created for long-term use, active ingredients are stored there in a form of gas under high pressure. When Beanie’s curiosity won and he decided to monch on the inhaler, he broke the external seal of the canister with his teeth, which released pressured gas straight into his face. So instead of one dose of the medication, Beanie was sprayed with concentrate of Albuterol. The side effects of the medication influenced baby boy straight away forcing his body to produce extreme amounts of adrenalin. Upon arrival to the clinic, his heart rate was above 190. While normal heart rate for dogs should be between 90 and 120 beats per minute.

We had to act promptly to ensure that Beanie’s heart rate goes back to normal ASAP to prevent any possible damage. Remember when we explained how Albuterol affects beta-adrenergic receptors? An “antidote” for malfunctions of these is beta blockers, as they block the overworked receptors and return heart rate and blood pressure to normal. Which we did with Beanie. We also monitored his heart rate at all times to ensure everything is working smoothly.

During the entire hospitalization process we praised Beanie’s mum vigilance. Tachycardia (fast heart rate) is not an easy-to-spot symptom. The fact that she noticed this and made her way to us ASAP gave us an opportunity to provide Beanie with the needed treatment in no time. This also helped to avoid any long-term serious consequences. The baby boy had to spend a night with us in hospital but was back home in no time!

10/03/2024

Happy Canberra Day!

As our friends and colleagues enjoy their well-deserved break, we remain open during the lovely celebration day of Canberra. While our team dedicates time and effort to helping animals in need, we hope you get to enjoy this lovely day!
Yet, if you are experiencing any emergencies or need veterinary assistance, don't hesitate to contact us on 6225 7257 to chat with our wonderful client care and nurse teams.

Stay Safe!

28/02/2024

A quick glimpse into the life of our treatment room!

Always buzzing and always full of patients. Yet, our wonderful nurses always have time to stop and adore the cuteness of all the lovely animals that visit our clinic. 🐾
Which sometimes results in great photos like these! :)

It's all about these small moments of bonding that make a difference 💕

19/02/2024

Some healthy snacks post emergency treatment!

This lovely possum (we named him Smokey 💕) was brought to us after he got trapped in a BBQ. Unfortunately, he sustained damage to over 60% of his body and 2nd degree burns to his hips. Yet, we are very grateful for wonderful volunteers at ACT Wildlife who reacted to this emergency very quickly and brought this little guy in.
This gave us an opportunity to provide all the needed treatment for Smokey. For being the most well behaved patient of the night Smokey received a reward of a sweet pear!
He is now recovering well probably having more healthy snacks in the wild! 💕

07/02/2024

Thank you.

We don’t even know where to start! What a rollercoaster of positivity and wholesomeness the last two weeks have been for our team! We could never imagined the amount of feedback and outreach we would get after Open Letter was published.

Even though it was such a sad reason that motivated us to share our feelings with you, oh what a beautiful thing blossomed from this. Your support has been enormous! Starting from acknowledging our emotions and sharing them with the world for us to wonderful kind people presenting to the clinic to give us presents and food!

Every person putting effort into letting us know we are loved and needed - thank you!

Our suppliers at CenVet for the cutest card and gifts ever - thank you!

The wonderful team at Poetry in Flowers who delivered us the most gorgeous bouquet we have ever seen - thank you!

Our caring clients who brought us food and snacks - thank you!

The thoughtful anonymous soul who gifted our team handmade jewelry and stationery - thank you!

(Our entire team is wearing new fancy earrings now and our tummies are full of very yummy food!)

Thank you for proving and reminding everyone (and especially us!) that kindness always wins!

No words can fully express the enormous depth of our feelings processing all of this.

But we believe even a simple thank you can go a long way.

22/01/2024

Dear community,

With a heavy heart, we have to start a week with a very important and detailed message.

Please take time and read an Open Letter our Leadership team decided to issue to the public as a cry for change and awareness. This decision has been made due to the behaviour of some clients and visitors our team had to endure and witness lately.

We still love, appreciate, and value all the people who are kind and respectful towards our team. Your ongoing support, your positive and constructive feedback helped us to grow into who we are today. An excellent and reliable after-hour ECC clinic that is trusted by the community. We are here to care for animals, not to be abused.

Please be kind.
Always.

08/01/2024

You have probably seen Dr. Julie around already, as she recently joined our team, but we thought you might be interested to read more about her bio and her amazing experience!

We are extremely lucky to have her as our Clinical Coordinator! She has a very fun, detailed and overall amazing plan about upskilling our veterinary and nurse teams. So stay tuned to read more about our new trainings and workshops! ;)

30/12/2023

Stella.

We wanted to finish 2023 with one of the most spectacular patient stories experienced by our team recently. Please meet Stella. Being a charming and playful puppy, she won all of our hearts in a moment! Yet, the circumstances under which we met each other were extremely stressful.

Stella was spending some time with her canine sister at their grandparents’ place. Suddenly, the grandparents heard the other dog barking. While they tried to figure out what the dog was alerting to, they found Stella completely submerged in water at the bottom of the pool. Grandparents pulled her out straight away and attempted CPR, by squeezing her chest. Water started expelling from her nose and mouth. Once Stella’s parents were alerted of the accident, and understanding the severity of the situation, they rushed to pick her up to seek immediate veterinary assistance. Baby girl kept vomiting water in the car on the way to the vet as well…

Upon her arrival at CVES, we knew that we had to act quickly. Even though Stella was out of the water, we feared there still was a significant threat to her life due to secondary drowning. Secondary drowning can take place after water enters the lungs, causing severe tissue damage. It is extremely dangerous not only because of the harms to the organs, but also because not everyone realises it can cause death even hours after the initial incident. Knowing this, our team proceeded to take radiographs of Stella's chest to visualise her lungs and to assess the extent and severity of the situation.

Unfortunately, things weren’t good. When normal lungs are filled with air they appear black or dark on the X-Ray. Yet, Stella’s lungs were almost completely white signifying of a presence of a foreign liquid. We knew it was water. Stella needed immediate treatment. We placed her in an oxygen box, started her on supportive intra venous fluid therapy and had her under constant nurse observation for any changes. We expected a long road to recovery.

Stella spent the next few days in an oxygen chamber. There were some very stressful and worrying days for her family and for our team. Yet, with all the enormous support – she was improving! From a dull tired puppy, she slowly started returning to the lively Stella everyone was familiar with. We started learning she can be cheeky, she loves giving everyone kisses, she likes her belly scratched. Stella was improving and returning to good health. We eventually took her out of the oxygen chamber and moved her to a normal cage. After a few days of being monitored (and cuddled!), we were confident she was out of the woods. Her journey with us had come to an end and she was okay to go home to spend Christmas with her loving family. She is back with them now, surrounded by the ones who care for her dearly and having heaps of playtime with her dearest cheeky sister Rebel.

We fell in love with Stella in a heartbeat. While we acknowledge all the hard work we did for her, putting all of our skills and expertise to the test, we wouldn’t be able to help her without quick thinking of Stella’s family. Thanks to her carers performing CPR on her straight after the incident, she is able to celebrate Christmas with her family. We praise their bravery and quick thinking!

25/12/2023

Our team wishes everyone a very Merry Christmas! 🎄

We hope you have a great day and spend it with those who you love the most!

While we have to work to ensure all animals are safe, we are still having heaps of fun being spoiled by Santa this year!

A very special thanks to Buddy and his wonderful family who all visited the clinic this morning to wish us a Merry Christmas!

Yours truly,
CVES team
🎄✨🎉

Address

21 Crinigan Circle
Canberra, ACT
2912

Telephone

+61262257257

Website

http://cves.com.au/

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Videos

Yes, we are a vet clinic and we are lucky to have doggos as a part of our job every day! But we couldn’t ignore the #bringyourdogtoworkday, as it means we get to have Patrick and Ruben in the office again! Beloved fur sons of our Vet Manager Megan, these boys are basically official mascots of CVES. They are doGtors for our team! Only one boop kiss from Patrick and we are ready to take on the world! Does your workplace welcome this wonderful celebration?

What’s the key to any labrador’s heart? Of course, peanut butter!

Some healthy snacks post emergency treatment! This lovely possum (we named him Smokey 💕) was brought to us after he got trapped in a BBQ. Unfortunately, he sustained damage to over 60% of his body and 2nd degree burns to his hips. Yet, we are very grateful for wonderful volunteers at ACT Wildlife who reacted to this emergency very quickly and brought this little guy in. This gave us an opportunity to provide all the needed treatment for Smokey. For being the most well behaved patient of the night Smokey received a reward of a sweet pear! He is now recovering well probably having more healthy snacks in the wild! 💕

Weekend capacity update. Unfortunately, we are remaining extremely busy with the amount of critical patients we have in the hospital. While trying to help as many incoming consults we can, stable patients are still facing extended wait times. We are extremely (!) grateful for all the support and understanding our visitors and clients are showing towards us. Thank you for your patience and thank you for giving us an opportunity to save those who don’t have the luxury of waiting longer. We still highly encourage you to please call us on 6225 7257 to get assessed by our client care and nurse teams. Sincerely, Canberra Veterinary Emergency Service team.

Have you ever had a situation where your cat ate something they were not supposed to? As an emergency clinic, we see our fair share of patients who did a naughty like this. While dogs are quite straight forward for our clinical professionals, cats are a very different story. Well, you can see it on the video... Medication veterinarians use to induce vomiting (as that’s your first step to help the patient) is called apomorphine. While proven to be quite effective in dogs, it is known to have mixed results in cats. We all know how stubborn our feline friends can be! Unfortunately, only around 10% of cases are deemed successful and result in vomiting. That’s why we have to rely on different medications, nature and even physics. An old, yet very efficient trick – we spin cats in a chair. These gentle spins in addition to the medications administered give us a better chance of success, thus avoiding possible surgery or toxicity in the future!

Nothing better than a nice and tasty serve of milk for lunch! 😍🐾

Important update to our triage procedure! 😍🐾 Thanks to Dr. Taylor’s unorthodox approach, a new key vital will be added when assessing patients. Bounciness! ✨ For pets who are scoring high, extra cuddles will be provided immediately! For pets who’s fluff is not willing to bounce, extra sweet kisses on the nose will be administered by the first available staff member! ❤️

Our caring nurses and vets will go out of their way to make sure each patient gets the best care possible ❤️🐾

Our wonderful nurse Keegan is working hard to make sure his patients are getting best care possible 😍💖

Dear Canberra community! Today we approach you with a very special message. It is a bit long, but filled with our sincere emotions. Our team tries to use the powerful platform of social media for many things. We are trying to bring you some knowledge about veterinary life and our industry, as well as share stories of our wins against the odds and all the animal and human heroes we come across in our daily practice. We are trying to raise awareness about issues that are important to us. We share the depths of our knowledge with you so all pet parents have an opportunity to create a safe and happy world for their fur babies. We serve our community and we talk about how we do it, either by providing emergency treatments for those in need or supporting local volunteer organisations or participating in nationwide challenges. We do all of this to make a change and have some positive impact on everyone who surrounds us. We do this because every single member of our team believes that kindness and love and compassion is what matters most. That’s why we put our heart and soul in every single little thing we do, sincerely hoping you can feel our love and dedication. But today is different for us. Today we are asking for your support and help, so we can keep this amazing team thriving and growing. The veterinary industry is in crisis these days and we are feeling the impact of this crisis, as many other businesses. We urgently and desperately need more vets and nurses to join our team. So, please help us spread the word, because we need your help now as never before! Let us all prove one more time that the Canberra community if full of supportive and amazing people! Share this post or ask your friends! We need to let as many people as we can know that we are hiring! We are sincere and honest about the fact that our team is exceptional. We are professional, supportive and of course a little bit crazy! And if you ever had to visit our clinic you know it’s filled with d

Our brilliant nurse Hayley enjoying the best part of the job with the cuddliest of the patients handsome Sarek 😻

That feeling when you’re independent possum and you need no vet nurse to feed you 😎

Who doesn’t like a good cuddle? 😍💕

A little “behind the scenes” from CVES 😊 We have been lucky to capture a pretty cool procedure we don’t have to do that often in emergency. You can see our lovely Dr. Perri measuring eye pressure of a very nice and patient kitty cat. Tonometry is the technique used to measure the IOP, intraocular pressure. Human optometrists use it on daily basis all the time. High or low levels of IOP can be signs of glaucoma, inflammations or even dehydration. There are also different techniques to measure. The way we use pictured in the video is based on a rebound measuring principle, in which a light weight probe is used to make momentary contact with the cornea. The gentle measurement does not need any anesthetic nor does it cause corneal reflex in the majority of animals. Most of our patients don’t mind it at all! Why see emergency for eye problems? Because those are always an emergency. Unfortunately, majority of eye related conditions only manifest themselves in a very common generic symptom – red eyes. Sometimes there can be swelling, sometimes even not that. Issues with eyes can develop quickly and deteriorate to a state where the eye needs to be fully removed. We always recommend concerned pet parents to call, have a chat with us and present for a consultation in case their fur babies are having any kind of eye issues, as this matter is very sensitive and always requires immediate attention.

Sorry, I am busy with my patient duties! Have to go! Bye bye! #cutestpatientever P.S. No nurses or vets were harmed in this case of cuteness overload 😉