Pet Instructor Skill Review
Course Content
- Introduction to your Pet First Aid Instructor refresher course
- Course introduction
- Dog First Aid and The Law
- The vet and your role in first aid
- The Role of the Dog First Aider
- When is Veterinary Care Required?
- Keeping your pet safe in an emergency
- Car Accidents
- Car Accidents - Injuries and Treatment
- Pet Proofing your home
- Please rescue my pets stickers
- Hand Hygiene
- Dog Microchipping
- Cat microchipping
- Precautions and Safety
- Pet Anatomy and Physiology
- First Aid Kits and Equipment
- Checking a Pets health
- Initial Assessment
- Checking Your Dog's Health and Finding Out What Is Normal
- Gum Colour
- Collecting a Urine Sample
- How Dogs Show Pain
- How Dogs Show Pain - Vets Comments
- Taking a Pulse
- Taking the Temperature
- Taking the Rectal Temperature
- Vital Signs
- Comprehensive Assessment and Checking Vital Signs Example
- Pet Accidents and First Aid
- Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation - CPR
- Dog CPR Introduction
- Dog CPR Practical Demonstration
- CPR on deep chested dogs
- Small and barrel-chested dog CPR
- Cat CPR
- Near and Secondary Drowning
- Dogs Drowning and Treatment
- Near and Secondary Drowning - vets comments
- How Realistic is Dog CPR - hear what our vet says
- Oxygen and Your Dog
- Administration of Oxygen
- Choking
- Bleeding Control
- Different Conditions you may see
- Breathing and Respiratory Problems
- Loss of Appetite
- Sneezing
- Lethargy
- Urination Problems
- Weakness in Animals
- Weakness and Collapse - additional vets comments
- Hair Loss and Skin Conditions
- Cataracts
- Dehydration in Dogs
- Clinical signs of dehydration in dogs and cats
- Hydration and rehydration in dogs
- Fluid balance in dogs and cats
- Oralade - treating dehydration
- Oralade for cats
- Oralade - The Science
- Injuries
- Suspected fractures
- Types of fractures on animals
- Dog Fractures Treatment
- Spinal injury and moving an injured dog
- Spinal Injuries
- Paw Problems
- Paws and Claws
- Nail and Claw Injuries
- Eye Injuries
- Eye Problems
- Ear Problems
- General Bandaging
- Bandaging the Ear
- Bandaging the Tail and Tail Injuries
- Bandaging the Body
- Fight Wounds
- Puncture Wounds
- Mouth and Dental Problems
- Animal bites and scratches on dogs
- Small Cuts, Scratches and Grazes
- Bandage aftercare
- Stings on animals
- Ibuprofen and pets
- Carbon Monoxide and dogs
- Poisoning
- Vet poison information line
- Inducing Vomiting in a Dog
- Inducing Vomiting - vets comments
- Snake Bites
- Dog Burns
- Chemical Burns
- Electrocution
- Electric Shocks
- Cruciate Ligament
- Falls From Height
- Illness
- Dogs and Illnesses
- Bloat and Gastric Dilatation and Volvulus (GDV)
- Why do dogs eat grass
- Why are Onions Toxic to Dogs
- Why is Chocolate Toxic to Dogs
- High Temperatures and Heatstroke
- Hyperthermia - Vets Comments
- Hypothermia Treatment
- Hypothermia - vets comments
- Vomiting in Animals
- Different Types and Causes of Vomiting
- Vomiting - vets comments
- Seizures and Epilepsy
- Diabetes
- Allergies in Dogs
- Allergic reactions
- Pancreatitis
- Cushings Disease
- Nose and Respiratory Problems - Vet
- Breathing Difficulties
- Coughing and kennel cough
- Kennel Cough - vets comments
- Diarrhoea in Animals
- Stomach Conditions
- Possible Causes of Blood in Dog Faeces
- Rabies
- Alabama Foot Rot
- Blue Green Algae
- Hip Dysplasia
- Urinary Tract Infections
- Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
- Pyometra
- Vestibular Syndrome
- Parasites that affect pets
- Cats
- Different types and sizes of animals
- Summary and Your Practical Session
Need a certification?
Get certified in Pet Instructor Skill Review for just £99.95 + VAT.
Dog CPR
Unlock This Video Now for FREE
This video is normally available to paying customers.
You may unlock this video for FREE. Enter your email address for instant access AND to receive ongoing updates and special discounts related to this topic.
One of the most distressing things you might have to do with your pet is CPR, cardiopulmonary resuscitation. We do cardiopulmonary resuscitation when your pet is not breathing and it has got no heartbeat. So what we are going to do is have a talk through on the theory of doing CPR. So, the first thing we need to do is identify that there is actually a problem. So you might come across your pet or it might be that the pet has drowned or electrocuted, and you find that they are not breathing and you start to get into a bit of a panic. Now, when you are doing CPR, this is not an easy skill to do. The physical act of doing it is easy, it is more the emotional side is very, very difficult. We hope no one will need to do this. What we will do now is have a look through the whole cycle of doing pet CPR. In this example, we are going to do it onto a dog, but doing it onto other animals is pretty much the same. To start with, we need to find out if the dog is breathing. You can tilt the head back slightly, you do not want the head far forward because that can actually block the airway, so tilt the head back slightly, and you can rest the head or leave it laying on the floor. And we are look, listening, and feeling, for signs of circulation or signs of breaths. To do this you pop your ear right down close, you want to keep your ear close because you want to make sure you can concentrate what you are doing and listen to any signs of breathing and you can look down the body. And as you are looking down the body, you are looking for the chest to rise and fall. You can also place a hand over the stomach and the chest, so you can see if you can feel it rising and falling, and you are looking for what is called normal breathing. Now, we do this for 10 seconds, and it is worth doing it for a whole 10 seconds, and the way of making sure of that is to speak it out loud. So, actually count up to 10 slowly. In that time, you should hear a breath. If you do hear a breath at that stage then the dog is breathing, so this is the point we definitely need to get them to the vet as quick as possible. But just because you hear them breathing now, you must monitor their breathing the whole time just in case they are going to get worse and the breathing stops. If you do not detect the breaths, you need to start off with some breaths into the dog and the idea with CPR at this level is, most of the time, the reason the dog is not breathing is a respiratory type problem. If you are looking at a human, an older human it is highly probable they have gone into cardiac arrest which is a heart problem, and this may be that the dog has drowned or electrocuted or maybe through illness, its breathing is just not strong enough. So what we are going to do is to start with, is give some initial breaths. How we do the initial breaths is to grab hold of the tongue and just pull it out to one side and close the mouth. What we are doing here is pulling the tongue from the back of the mouth and also sealing the mouth, so that when we are doing the breaths into the nose, we know that the air is not going to come straight out the mouth. If you cannot grip hold of the tongue or sometimes cats' tongues are quite hard to get hold of, you can use a gauze pad, a bit of bandage, a tea cloth or just a bit of your clothing just to grip the tongue and pull it to one side. We are keeping the airway open so it is not forced down, and what we need to do is we need to deliver breaths. Now, breaths are going in about one every six seconds. And what we need to do is put the breaths in by sealing your mouth over their nose. Now, some breeds of dogs and cats might have a very small mouth and you can actually blow in the mouth and the nose, but most of them you would need to seal the mouth and blow into the nose. By sealing around the mouth here, you get your mouth down there and you are delivering the breaths. And the whole time you are doing this, you are monitoring, seeing what is happening. Now, you will see the chest rise and fall. You do not want to blow too much in, so once you see that chest rising, usually in about a second or up to a second, you will see the chest rise and then let go, so come away from it and you will see the chest fall, and then it is ready to put the second breath in. If you hear the dog breathing for itself or getting up or making noises, you just stop. Do not carry this on if you know the dog is then breathing. The next thing you need to do is find out if the heart is beating. So, depending on the situation you have gone into, if you have brought them out of the water it may well be that you can give them maybe five breaths and then see whether they have got circulation, or in other instances you might want to do a circulation check sooner. Now, in other videos we have looked at checking the pulse of your dog, and this is what we are doing here again. Taking our fingers just inside the back leg and we are feeling for a pulse. Do not put your thumb on the top because you might find that you feel the pulse through your own thumb, because you have got a pulse point within your thumb. Just your fingers loosely over there, and you are feeling where the artery goes over bone and you should feel a pulse there. We are doing that because it is the main femoral artery going down the leg so it is one point that should, even if the heart beat is very weak, you should be able to pick up a pulse. Checking the pulse is something that you can do on your dog just to practice now. If you do not get a pulse, we then need to do chest compressions. Now, chest compressions are delivered by placing one hand in the centre of the chest. We roughly work out where the elbow is when we bent the leg back. So if you take your dog, you can practice on your dog now, just tilt the leg back where the elbow goes is where your hand goes. We normally lay them onto their right hand side, because like with humans, the heart is set to one side so the compressions are much more efficient if you can lay them onto their right side. You can place one hand down in the centre of the their chest. Now, if you cannot push down with one hand, you can use two hands. Just grip your fingers together and use two. It depends on the size of your dog, it depends on what size you are. Now, the compression rates have been brought in line more with human first aid, so they are much easier to remember. We are doing 30 compressions, two breaths, 30 compressions and we carry that on. When we are doing the actual compressions, what is happening is with pushing down on the heart, and when you squeeze the heart, the blood inside the heart will be pumped out through the right hand side of the heart, it is being pumped through the lungs and the left hand side out through the body. While you do your compression you push down to squeeze the blood out of the heart. When you let go, it sucks blood back in. So it is just as important as the compression is the release, because if you do not release the chest fully, then the heart is not going to be full of blood so the compressions you are doing are going to be less efficient. Also the speed of compressions, it is roughly done about 100 to 120 compressions a minute. This is the same as with human first aid. So it is set at that within first aid to make it easier for people to remember. As far as how long do you do this for, if there's two of you there, then it is a good idea to swap over every two minutes. You could, if you can control the scene well, because sometimes this is not easy, is one person can do the compressions and the other person can do the breaths. But it is often easier for one person do both and then switch over to the other one. If you have to do this for any length of time, your feet, your ankles are going to be hurting, you will get tired, and you get very upset. Then the other thing is... Doing these compressions, then the hope is is that we can get them breathing again, and they will show signs of life. But when do you stop? And this is always a very hard one to say. There has been a lot of research done, and if a dog has been brought round with CPR, it is usually, has always been within the 10 minutes, and it is virtually unheard of to be doing CPR for over 20 minutes. Survival rates for this, with pet first aid and pet first aid training, pet CPR and dog CPR is one of big things people want to learn. The chance of this working will depend on lots of things. If your dog is drowned or being electrocuted, then it is possible that the percentage rates are going to be much, much higher, because it is a respiratory problem. But research has shown that within the veterinary world of where they have actually got a lot more equipment than you would have, the chance of survival with a full-blown cardiac arrest can be around about 6%. Again, that will vary on what has actually happened. So I am sure you would agree, even if it was 6%, this is definitely worth doing for your pet. Finally, it is a good idea to practice this. You can practice on toys and things like that, but never, ever practice CPR on a real dog or a real cat. Also, if you have got a really old dog, and the dog has stopped breathing and no cardiac output, then you also need to make a decision, well, is it right to do CPR? And in our other videos you have seen our dog, Storm. She was 18-and-a-half when she died. Now that, CPR is not going to have any benefit there, and it is not really going to be any use to it. So look at the situation, assess the situation. And CPR is a very, very good thing to learn, and it is a very good thing to practice just in case you need it. And if you have had human first aid skills trained to you, then just with these slight variations you can do CPR on your pet.
Pet CPR: Identifying and Responding to Breathing Problems
1. Problem Identification
Assess the Situation: Begin by determining if your pet is breathing and if a heartbeat is detectable.
- Cause Investigation: Understand the potential cause, whether it's drowning, electrocution, or another evident reason.
- Stay Calm: Avoid panic to think and act clearly.
2. Assessing Breathing and Airway
Checking Breathing: Verify your pet's breathing status and airway condition.
- Open the Airway: Gently tilt the head back to ensure the airway remains open.
- Monitoring Signs: Observe for circulation and breathing signs, including chest movement.
- Count for 10 Seconds: Count aloud while observing for 10 seconds.
- Detection of Breathing: If breathing is detected, transport your pet to the vet while continuously monitoring their breathing.
- No Breathing: If no breathing is observed, you'll need to initiate CPR, often due to respiratory issues.
3. Performing CPR
Commencing CPR: Begin CPR if there are no signs of breathing.
- Airway Management: Position the tongue to the side, or use a gauze pad for cats, to keep the airway open.
- Rescue Breaths: Seal your mouth over the pet's nose, provide a gentle breath for up to a second, and watch for chest movement.
- Monitor Response: If your pet starts breathing, moving, or making sounds, stop immediately.
- Pulse Check: If there's no pulse, move on to chest compressions.
- Effective Compressions: Lay dogs on their right side for more efficient compressions.
- Proper Technique: Place your hand in the center of the chest or use both hands for large dogs, interlocking fingers.
- Compression and Breathing Ratio: Administer 30 compressions followed by two breaths, repeating this cycle.
- Continuous Monitoring: If any signs of breathing appear, stop CPR and transport your pet while monitoring closely.
- Extended CPR Consideration: After 10 minutes with no signs of life, it's essential to evaluate whether to continue; generally, after 20 minutes, resuscitation becomes unlikely.
- Success Factors: Keep in mind that successful resuscitation depends on various factors, such as your pet's age and the cause of the breathing cessation.
Recommended Products For You
