Officer down
7 April 2008Many EMS providers (and emergency docs) assume they’ll never have to treat a pet, and that’s probably true–the choice is yours as to whether you want to give mouth-to-snout resuscitation, and only a few lucky departments have canine or feline oxygen masks.
That doesn’t mean you’ll never be forced to treat a dog. If you’re not sure what I mean, ask any cop you know what would happen if a K9 officer went down when you and your ambulance happen to be handy–and if you’re still not too keen on treating a K9 in the back of your ambulance, be sure to consider how keen you are on having its handler stick a Glock in your ear.
Fortunately, dogs are closely related enough to humans that the principles of resuscitation are basically the same, although the techniques are a bit different. Direct pressure is direct pressure (and probably the thing you’ll need the most); for a description of resuscitation of a dog, go this well-written site (if you can ignore how many times they write “guage” instead of “gauge”). More thorough information is available from the Merck Veterinary Manual.
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