No matter how careful you are, dog emergencies can happen suddenly and without warning. Your pup might eat something they shouldn’t or get into a fight with another animal. It’s not enough to just know the symptoms. Be prepared with these helpful tips on how to handle dog emergencies! Remember: what you do during these incidents can improve or worsen your pet’s condition.
Top 10 Dog Emergencies And What You Can Do
1. Allergic Reactions
Most of the time, canine allergic reactions are due to vaccines, medications, and bee or insect stings. Other allergens can include trees and grass, spores, dust, and even perfume. If it’s due to vaccines or medications, you can monitor your pup for any symptoms. However, bee stings are another story. They might have gone for a walk outside and came back with hives, bald patches, coughing or sneezing or facial swellings. You can give them antihistamine for the symptoms to subside. If it goes to shock or if the symptoms do not subside, bring your pet to the veterinary clinic right away.
2. Vomiting and Diarrhea
Reasons for vomiting and diarrhea in canines can include a variety of reasons. The most concerning is eating something toxic or an infection like the parvovirus. Puppies are the most vulnerable to vomiting and diarrhea since their curiosity leads them to ingest dangerous objects.
For mild cases, vomiting and diarrhea will go away on its own. If it persists, you should have your dog checked out by a vet. An abdominal x-ray or ultrasound may be done to figure out what’s wrong him. If they did ingest an object, those could be dispelled by induced vomiting.
3. Vehicular Accidents
Every time your pet go out, they’re vulnerable to automobile accidents. These vehicular hit accidents can range from mild to critical. It’s always advisable to have your pet examined by a veterinarian right after an accident to rule out or help heal fractures, head traumas, ruptured organs or internal injuries.
4. Seizures
Why do dogs have seizures? Epilepsy, low blood sugar, poisoning, head trauma, as well as liver or kidney diseases induce seizures in pets.
If your pet suddenly has a seizure and becomes fine afterward, schedule a visit to your vet to figure out why it happened. However, if your dog has multiple seizures that last for more than 5 minutes, bring your pet to the clinic right away. This is most likely a severe case that needs to be attended to right away.
5. Spinal Disease / Paralysis
Dogs can get herniated discs or spinal diseases that need to be attended to right away. If your pet starts limping or had a hard a time walking, bring them to the vet right away. If your dog does have the spinal disease, they may be prescribed medicine or they may need to undergo surgery to heal.
6. GDV or Bloat
Gastric dilation and volvulus (GDV) or bloat happens when a dog’s stomach becomes filled with too much air, fluid or food. This raises the risk of the stomach twisting itself, which is fatal for dogs. This could lead to restrictions in blood flow and even death. Dogs with big bellies are highly vulnerable to GDV.
If you see your dog retching with a hunched posture and pale gums, they could be having GDV. You need your pet to go to the vet right away.
7. Hemoabdomen
Internal bleeding in the abdomen area or hemoabdomen could happen because of injuries, traumas, infections, tumors rapturing or a myriad of other sicknesses. The loss of blood could result in pale gums, weakness, rapid heartbeat and collapse. If this happens, you need to bring your pet to the vet right away. Your pet needs to get blood tests, x-rays, and even MRI scans. For severe cases, an emergency surgery may have to be performed to stop internal bleeding.
8. Collapse
Next three days are going to be critical for my dog. He has a collapsed trachea and a horrid cough. Hopeful these new meds will help. pic.twitter.com/u56yIPqLcj
— Mike Johnny (@36aday) October 16, 2017
If your dog suddenly collapses, it could be because of several reasons, such as internal bleeding, poisoning, GDV, heat stroke, or even simple blood sugar or hypoglycemia. You should bring your pet to a vet for dog emergencies like this.
Dogs with long-term illnesses like asthma and arrhythmia could suddenly collapse because of complications. Ask your vet of tips on what to do in situations like this occur.
9. Toxicities / Poisoning
Aside from poison and pesticides, there are also certain foods that are harmful to dogs. If your pet ate chocolates, grapes, onions or human medications, you could force your pet to vomit or give your vet a call right away.
10. Bites
Having several pets at home, fights may occur among the pack. If this happens, bite wounds can be cleaned and dressed at home, but it’s better to have lacerations or any bite wounds examined by your vet. If your pet obtained those bite wounds from a dog outside the house, the risk of them getting infected with rabies is high.
Don’t wait for dog emergencies to occur. Prevent possible health problems with these tips.
You need to have a clear mind when it comes to dog emergencies. Although that may sound impossible to do for some, educating yourself can help you when the time comes. Keep your pet’s veterinarian on speed dial for cases like this.
What should other dog emergencies be on this list? Let us know in the comment section below.
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