June 1st marks the start of Heartworm season!!
Houston goes under general anesthesia!
Watch two of our exceptional Veterinary Technicians anesthetize Houston, the Bernese Mountain Dog!
Step 1️⃣ Shave and clip the cephalic vein! Then, watch Andria do a 3 step surgical preparation to the skin. 😷
Step 2️⃣ Place an IV catheter! 🩸 Houston gets a large gauge to allow for adequate fluid administration in an emergency.
Step 3️⃣ Attach the IV fluids to allow for hydration, maintenance of blood pressure and medication administration directly into the vein ! 💧💦
Step 4️⃣ We use an “induction agent” to induce temporary anesthesia in our patients! Watch as Andria injects the medication and Houston’s head falls. We have many different medications we can use for this! 💊💉
Step 5️⃣ Intubation! While one technician supports Houston’s head and exposes his airway, the other will extract the tongue 👅 to view the tracheal opening! Using her laryngoscope to press down on the tongue, Andria can place the endotracheal tube over the epiglottis and between the vocal folds in order to enter the trachea! 🫁
Voila! A patient is now ready to be hooked up to oxygen anesthetic gas to stay asleep for their surgical procedure - stay tuned for a clip of this!!
Heartworm and Lyme Testing!
Watch this fun clip about how we run your pet’s 4DX (Heartworm, Lyme, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia) test!
🩸🩸Ever wonder how simple a jugular blood draw is - take a peak!!
Another day…. Another vomit. 🤢 Aspen ate the end of some hair clippers (and two rocks… and a chunk of rubber). But before he digested this tasty treat we intervened to avoid an intestinal obstruction!
HOW DO WE DO IT!?
1. Feed some canned food (they vomit easier after!) 🍽️🍽️
2. Inject Apomorphine (an opioid that makes them vomit) intravenously! 💉💉
3. Catch the vomit 🤮
4. Make sure the bits you’re looking for are there! 🔎🔍
5. Kisses from Aspen! 😘😘
It’s HEARTWORM TESTING SEASON!
Here is a great demo of what a test entails.
🩸Small, quick blood draw
👩⚕️Competent technician
⏰ 8 minutes
What does this test for?
1️⃣ Heartworm (from mosquitos)
2️⃣ Lyme Disease (from ticks)
3️⃣ Ehrlichia (from ticks)
4️⃣ Anaplasma (from ticks)
That’s right, 4 conditions!
Why should I get this test done?
👨🔬Most of the heartworm medication available requires a negative heartworm test prior to starting. This is because the medication can be dangerous in a positive animal.
🪲 Ticks are increasingly prevalent in our area and Lyme disease threatens human health as well.
How do I book?
☎️ As long as you are an active client and have seen a Doctor within a year, this test can be performed with one of our Veterinary Technicians! Call the clinic to book a short 20 minute appointment.
Then what, Doctor!?
💊 While your pet starts their flea and tick medication as soon as the weather is above 4C, medication for heartworm and gastrointestinal parasites (roundworms and such!) starts June 1st and goes until November 1st!
💊 If the test is positive the Veterinarian will work with you for next steps!
#heartworm #lymedisease #lyme #ehrlichia #anaplasma #ticks #tickseason #mosquito #4dx #blooddraw #phlebotomy #vettech #vettechlife #houndsofinstagram #hound #hounddog #vetmed
DENTAL PROPHY for CHLOE! A MOUTH SO FRESH DR. COURTNEY GOT A KISS 😘
Think for a minute about your own dental care - twice daily brushing, flossing, mouthwash, dental scaling and polish 1-2 x/year. OKAY, NO WONDER OUR DOG’S DEVELOP DENTAL DISEASE!!
Chloe here is not old but she is seeing early evidence of dental and periodontal disease. You can see mild tartar and gingivitis present in the video. Chloe is keeping on top of it every few years to avoid extractions!
GO CHLOE!
It’s March 1st!! Time to start that flea and tick prevention!
What’s a vet do!? #vetmed #veterinarymedicine #ultrasound #surgery #abdominalsurgery #spayandneuter #spay #dental #canines #felines #enterotomy #cystocentesis
Watch a collection of senior dogs catch a treat!! They (mostly) came to impress!! 😂🥰😂🥰
Watch at your own discretion!! That “item” in this dog’s stomach makes a sneak peak 👀
ANESTHETIC MONITORING 📺
Let’s break this down by colours we see on the screen 🌈
🟢 Heart rate! You’ve all seen an ECG before! Probes on our patient monitor the electrical conduction of the heart! We alter our anesthesia if it is too fast, slow or there are arrhythmias!
🟡 Blood pressure is measured by a cuff on our patient’s leg. We have three readings: Systolic (pressure in arteries when the heart beats), diastolic (pressure in arteries between beats) and a mean! Both high and low blood pressure are concerning and will be addressed!
🔵 Our Blood Oxygen Saturation or how well our blood is oxygenated! This should be greater than 96 in a healthy patient! The probe on the tongue in our previous patient reads this value - check it out!
🐳 Our End Tidal CO2 (what the heck? Use English pls 🙏🏼) is the amount of carbon dioxide released at the end of each breath. This helps us measure how often and well a patient is breathing and gives us indicators about blood pressure as well! A high ETCO2 could indicated hypoventilation and we may need to help them breathe for awhile 🫁
OKAY! WHO THINKS THEY COULD MONITOR ANESTHESIA FOR SURGERY NOW!? 🤓💉
OXYGEN AND ANESTHETIC GAS DELIVERY 😮💨
This video shows an intubated dog - this means that there is an endotracheal tube in our patient’s trachea that delivers anesthetic gas and oxygen to their lungs. Anesthetic gas is then absorbed into the blood stream to keep them asleep.
Notice the probe on this patient’s tongue? This is a pulse oximeter which measures a patient’s oxygen levels in their blood!
Let’s point out some things!
☝🏼See the bag inflating and deflating? That’s our patient breathing!
✌🏼See that purple stone like material in the anesthetic setup? This is called soda lime a material that removes the carbon dioxide (CO2) from the exhaled gas so our patient’s done re breathe it!
☝🏼✌🏼 The metal canister holds the Isoflurane, our anesthetic gas!
✌🏼✌🏼 Our anesthetic monitor shows our oxygenation levels and a measurement of CO2 is exhaled in each breath!
Now….. JUST BREATHE!
TEMPERATURE CONTROL 🌡️🌡️ WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?Thermoregulation is impaired under anesthesia so the biggest concern under anesthesia is hypothermia (getting cold)!🥶 The screen tells us the temperature and this long grey thermometer passes down the esophagus to get us an accurate reading! 📺A cold temperature can affect patient coagulation, drug metabolism and prolonged recovery times. ❄️To keep our patients warm - we use heated water matts under our patients, warm our IV fluids and surround our patients with heated oatmeal bags (wrapped in fabric so that there is never direct skin contact). 🔥This little guy is a little chilly but warming up in response to our efforts! We aim for 37.0 C and above! Hyperthermia can occur but is much less common!#hypothermia #hyperthermia #temp #temperature #anesthesiologylife #anesthesia #esophagealthermometer
IV FLUID THERAPY! Why’s it important? 💧IV fluids are formulated to maintain the correct fluid and electrolyte balance in the body and ensure there is adequate oxygen perfusion to the organs!💧Blood pressure! In times of blood loss or low blood pressure - a fluid bolus can be a helpful response! 💧An IV catheter and fluid line allows us to administer medications directly into the blood stream. These can be routine or life saving drugs. 💧We heat our fluids to a set temperature which can help maintain a patient’s body temperature during anesthesia. HERE’S OUR HYDRATION STATION SETUP 💁🏼♀️
LOOK WHAT WE FOUND 👀This dog presented with chronic swelling of the right hind paw region. Look what was found! Without removing this foreign material, it would have acted as a nidus for ongoing infection and inflammation. HOW REWARDING IS A CASE LIKE THIS! #foreignbody #vetmed #surgerylife #surgery #softtissuesurrgery #vettech #vetlife🐾
She just can’t get enough 🤤🤤
Our tech makes us beautiful crocheted poppies to wear while we work. She has generously taken donations to the local legion in remembrance of those who gave their lives. We Remember today 🌺
Happy Veterinary Technician Week to these ladies who show up and rock their jobs every day of the year 👊🏼
BODY HANDLING! 👀👂🐾🐕
Today’s video is an important one! Introducing your puppy to handling as they may experience at the vet ensures that they know it’s normal and improves their experience when they come! Here’s Ruger to demonstrate and share some tips!
🐾 Handling all parts of your puppy are crucial! Consider eyes, ears, paws, tail, belly! Opening and closing their mouth is great since this can be a hard area for us to examine! Paws are also of utmost importance since nail trims tend to be scary for our dog friends.
👀 Start small! Short periods of handling are all most puppies can handle before your teaching turns into a game of biting! So take it slow and work up to more and more body parts!
🙉 A really helpful training tool for us is if dogs understand handling for blood draws! We will show you more on this later, but for now with your puppy, practice holding up their neck and holding up their front paws and around their thighs - all common places we take blood from. See the video for examples of this!
🦴 Lastly, like all training, this must be a positive experience! Those short handling windows must be full of positive reinforcement (GOOD BOY! THATS YOUR PAW YOU GOOD BOY!) and small treats so that they think body handling is fun and nothing to panic about when it happens at the vet!!
Okay guys - last note. It never hurts to continue this with our older dogs and makes those vet visits so much easier. So if you’re reading this and saying “oh shoot, that ship has sailed” - fear not. Start small, use treats and get your adult dog as comfortable with handling as Ruger ❤️
#labrador #vetmedicine #vetmed #labradorretriever #lablove #fearfree
