Surgical
Surgical Consultation
Before each surgical or dental procedure, the doctor evaluates your pet's medical records and completes a pre-surgical exam. After surgery, you will receive a call from the doctor with a post-operative update. At discharge, a veterinary nurse will provide home care education. In addition, a veterinary nurse will call to see how your pet is doing at home.
Pre-surgical Blood Evaluation
Pre-surgical blood evaluation is required within 30 days of the procedure to ensure that your pet is healthy enough to undergo anesthesia. The blood work is important because it can detect hidden problems that might make surgery or anesthesia inadvisable or warrant special precautions to be taken during the procedure. The following tests are run on young, healthy patients: BUN & Creatinine (kidney function), ALT & Alk Phosphatase (liver disease), Glucose (diabetes or insulinomas), Albumin (protein losing disease), PCV & Differential (anemia, infection & platelet level estimates). More extensive laboratory evaluation may be recommended based on the health and age of your pet.
Anesthesia & Monitoring
Anesthesia (Pre-anesthetic sedation and induction)
Preemptive pain medication and sedation decreases anxiety associated with hospitalization, restraint, and injections, as well as providing pain management for surgical/dental procedures. By having pain medication in the body prior to surgery, other anesthetic agents can be given in lower quantities which improves overall safety for the procedure. Injectable anesthetic agents provide rapid induction which is safer for the patient.
Patient Monitoring
To ensure your pet's comfort and safety during surgery, a Certified Veterinary Technician (veterinary nurse) monitors the entire duration of anesthesia. Advanced monitoring equipment continuously checks ECG, blood pressure, oxygen and carbon dioxide saturation, apnea, body temperature, pulse and respiration.
Intravenous Catheterization
Our standard of care for surgery, dentistry, and oral surgery patients includes intravenous catheterization. This provides administration of intravenous fluids during the surgical or dental procedure to support your pet's internal organ functions. It also provides instant intravenous access for administration of anesthetics, antibiotics, pain medications and emergency medications if necessary.
Spays and Neuters (Ovariohysterectomy and Castration)
We recommend spaying all female pets & neutering all male pets. Not only does your pet's health benefit, but it helps reduce pet overpopulation. The behavioral and health benefits to spaying or neutering your pet include:
FEMALES (Spaying - Ovariohysterectomy)
- Prevents signs of estrus (heat).
- Prevents blood stains on the carpet from the "heat" cycle.
- Decreases surplus of puppies and kittens.
- Decreases the chance of developing breast tumors later in life.
- Decreases the chance of cystic ovaries and uterine infections later in life.
- Prevents breast development if done before breeding age.
MALES (Neutering - Castration)
- Decreases the desire to roam the neighborhood to find mate or defend territory
- Decreases aggression
- Eliminates risk of testicular cancer
- Decreases incidence of prostate disease including cancer
- Prevents odor of male cat urine
- Prevents male cat spraying and marking
Your community will also benefit!
Pet overpopulation is a very significant concern. Unwanted animals can easily become a public nuisance; soiling parks and streets, ruining shrubs, frightening children or elderly people, creating noise and other disturbances, causing automobile accidents, and killing livestock or other pets.
As a potential source of rabies and other diseases, they can become a public health hazard.
The capture, impoundment, and eventual destruction of unwanted animals will cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year. To control budgets, some cities have eliminated their animal control departments, leaving unwanted cats to roam the streets and reproduce, further exacerbating the problem.
Facts about Spaying/Neutering:
Spaying does not cause a pet to get fat or lazy. This comes from overfeeding and poor exercise.
Personalities are not altered by spaying. Personalities do not fully develop until two years of age. Aggressiveness and viciousness are not the result of surgery. Personalities will ONLY get better!
Surgical risk is very slight due to modern anesthesia and techniques, but there is always be some small risk when an anesthetic is used. It is much easier on the pet to be spayed before going through a "heat" cycle, due to the smaller size of the reproductive tract. Best age to spay or neuter pets is 6-8 months of age.
Surgery is performed painlessly while your pet is under general anesthesia. Post-surgical pain is minimal. Most pets go home the same day surgery is performed.
