Just like you, our greatest concern is for the well being of your pet. Anesthesia and surgery involve some risk. We make every effort to minimize this risk by performing a complete physical examination on your animal before anesthesia and by using safe and effective anesthetic drugs.
Surgical risk may be further reduced by performing essential blood tests on your pet before we administer anesthesia. These tests can detect disease problems we cannot visualize on a physical examination. They help test the liver, kidneys, blood and for the feline diseases leukemia and FIV in cats, or heartworm, lyme, ehrlichia and anaplasmosis in dogs. Placement of an intravenous catheter prior to surgery also permits direct access to a vein should fluids be needed.
For these reasons we require:
1. A pre-anesthetic blood screening and a complete blood count (CBC) on all cats and
dogs. If above the age of five, a general health profile and CBC are required.
2. A feline leukemia/feline immunodeficiency virus test in cats or
heartworm/lyme/ehrlichia/anaplasmosis test in dogs to test any pet that has not been previously
tested or who cannot demonstrate proof of a current test.
3. Placement of an intravenous catheter prior to surgery.
4. Surgery by CO2 laser, which greatly reduces post-operative pain, promotes a more
rapid recovery and healing and also minimizes blood loss during the surgery.
5. In case of a spay, we do require overnight hospitalization to ensure the best possible
recovery.
6. Skin closures in our spay and neuter patients are generally performed with an intradermal
(under the skin) technique which are not visible and do not need to be removed in 2 weeks.
We do, however, recheck all surgeries at the 2 week mark at no charge.