At Loving Care Animal Hospital, we know that procedures requiring anesthesia can be stressful for pet owners. As pet owners ourselves, we understand this firsthand and deliver the same tender, compassionate care that we would apply to our own pets.
Each patient that undergoes an anesthetic procedure is first given a comprehensive physical examination, as well as a light sedative upon admission to our animal hospital. This sedative allows for your pet’s comfort and ease throughout the procedure, by helping to reduce nervousness and instead allowing for a sense of comfort and calm.
Your pet will have an intravenous catheter utilized to safely administer anesthetic injections and allow the use of IV fluids during the procedure. Many animal hospitals will only offer sedatives as an additional surgical option (with an additional fee) and will also not administer IV fluids.
However, at Loving Care Animal Hospital, we consider this to be incredibly important to delivering a successful procedure overall, as fluids help to maintain hydration and blood pressure, while allowing the body to remove anesthetic medications. Additionally, to prevent the loss of body heat which can occur with general anesthesia, your pet’s IV fluids will be heated by a special fluid warming machine, alongside a heated surgical table and a convective warming blanket known as a Bair hugger in human medicine.
Throughout the anesthesia process, we make sure to implement these additional measures to ensure the absolute comfort of your pet. Your pet will also be continuously monitored by our veterinarian and veterinary technicians, measuring heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature and anesthetic level. Additional monitoring occurs electronically via state-of-the-art electronic anesthesia monitoring equipment. This equipment samples seven different vital parameters from your pet and displays them in real-time for our staff. Our animal hospital uses only the most recent anesthetic medications and protocols during our anesthetic procedures, all of which have been adapted from the American Board of Veterinary Anesthesiology and the Veterinary Anesthesia Specialty Group.
By making sure that our anesthetic treatments adhere to these standards, we hope to ensure your pet’s comfort at all times. We’re also especially proud that our anesthesia machines are tested, serviced, and certified to human hospital standards on an annual basis. Only three other animal hospitals throughout the county take this additional step and the majority of animal hospitals will only have the equipment serviced if there is a direct problem.
We are proud to take these additional measures to guarantee your pet’s safety along with your peace of mind. Compassion, care and excellence are our driving standards, and you can rest assured that these qualities go into each service that we so proudly provide.