Do you know what to do if your pet stops breathing? Knowing a few emergency procedures if your dog or cat is choking, or having difficulty breathing, could save your pet’s life because you may not have time to get to a vet. Here are the steps for doing CPR on a dog and cat.This article originally appeared on DogHeirs.com and is reprinted with permission.
CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) preserves brain function until proper blood circulation and breathing can be restored.
The signs that indicate the need for CPR include unconsciousness, lack of arousal, lack of physical movement, or eye blinking. These symptoms can occur from drowning, choking, electrical shock, or a number of other situations.
If your pet has a foreign object stuck in his throat, it is important to try and dislodge it before performing CPR.
Performing mouth-to-snout resuscitation
The following information has been updated with latest recommended guidelines outlined by the first evidence-based research on how best to resuscitate dogs and cats in cardiac arrest. It was published in June 2012 by the Reassessment Campaign on Veterinary Resuscitation (RECOVER). The study recommends a few updates to past manual CPR practices on dogs.
The primary new recommendations are:
- Perform a compression to mouth-to-snout ventilation ratio of 30 compressions followed by 2 breaths
- Perform cardiac massage / chest compressions according to the different chest types and sizes of dogs (see diagrams below).
- The key to CPR is remembering the ABCs:
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