At River Vets we pride ourselves on offering gold standard quality veterinary care for every animal that comes through our doors. We aim to treat every patient with the same level care as if it was one of our own pets.
This weekend we keyhole spayed Imogen’s (our Animal Care Assistant) dog, Figgy. Here is a bit of an insight into what the procedure looked like:
Settling into her kennel 🏠
Our heated glass door kennels are spacious and provide pets with a home from home feel. We make sure to give dogs some fuss and attention as they come in to make them feel as relaxed as possible. Where appropriate we even have a radio playing some calm music for our patients to help them settle down.
Sedation 🥱💤
Once we’re ready to start the procedure, we give our patients a light sedative while we prep them for theatre and do any of the additional requests you might want us to do for you while they’re sleepy, such as clipping nails or expressing their anal glands.
Pre-oxygenation 🌬️
While sedated, we oxygenate our patients to make sure their oxygen levels are optimum before putting them under anaesthesia.
Blood profiling 🩸
We include blood tests as a standard of all our procedures to check their organs are functioning well. Further blood tests can be requested and carried out if owners request it.
Intravenous Fluids 💧
As standard all of our patients receive intravenous fluids throughout their anaesthetic, this is to support their liver and kidneys whilst they process the medications.
Aftercare 🌡️ 🤕
For keyhole spays, we put our patients in a body suit so they don’t have to wear an uncomfortable cone, this is usually done before they wake up.
A member of our team will stay with every patient as they come round from their anaesthetic to soothe them and ensure they don’t appear painful. We carry out pain scores and thorough checks every 15 minutes and their wounds will be checked regularly.
As you can see, dogs are often up and about wi
