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Surgery and procedures
Surgical cases are generally admitted between 8.30am and 9.00am. You will have been previously advised to starve your pet from midnight the night before the operation and the nurse doing the admission will check the details with you. A small drink of water is allowable before you bring your pet in to us. We do request your signature on a consent form before your pet is admitted to our hospital suite.
Most animals are admitted without prior premedication/sedation - this is because of the variety of drugs now available for this purpose. We tailor your pet’s needs according to general fitness and temperament and, of course, the type of techniques being undertaken. Some dogs can be quite nervous when left - owners may then be asked to wait whilst the animal is sedated and, of course, if you prefer to be with your dog when the sedative is given we will try and comply with your request. We routinely use pre-operative analgesia to help reduce pain during the recovery period.
Anaesthetics all carry risks to your pet: our aim is to keep those risks as low as we possibly can. To this end we may recommend a blood profile as part of your pet's pre-operative health check, particularly if he/she is older. We will also certainly advise the use of propofol to induce anaesthesia in older pets and for all ages in certain breeds due to its better safety margin in such animals.
Full monitoring is undertaken during surgical procedures and recovery. We do try to have pets ready for home the same day whenever possible - we believe they are much happier and so recover quicker in their own environment; however some cases inevitably do require hospitalisation (if the surgery has been extensive or if there are special feeding needs for example) and we have a full range of Shor-Line hospital kennel units with the ability to provide various types of intensive care (including blood transfusions and administration of pure oxygen) if needed.
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