What would you do if you found your dog lying helplessly on the floor after being poisoned, or after chewing on an electrical cord gets shocked? What if he or she is choking? How about the possibility of being struck by an automobile?
Oviously, you want to keep such images far from your mind. The last thing you want is for anything such as the foregoing scenarios to happen to your beloved friend. But lets face the facts. Accidents do happen and if you aren't in the position of knowing what to do to apply basic first aid attention to your dog, the oucome could be catastrophic.
This particular situation is of great concern to our staff, and so we felt complelled to give you a few tips.
The first things to know are paramount, for all living animals - including humans. That is that of Heartbeat and of breathing.
Artificial respiration as well as CPR that can be applied to dogs just like humans. The following routines are merely basic guidelines and you are urged to take a class on first aid for dogs so that you can be better prepared to handle an accident, should it ever happen.
1. The first thing you need to do upon finding your puppy injured and lying on the floor is to check for a heartbeat. If you cannot detect a hearbeat it is imperative to administer CPR at once. Here are the basic steps:
a) As the puppy or dog is lying on his or her side, place your hand on one side of its chest. If he is a large dog rather than a puppy, then make certain the dog is lying on his side.
b) Begin compressing the area of the rib cage where his heart is located using in short bursting movements, one compression per second.
c) While holding the mouth of the dog or puppy closed, blow through the nostrils until you see the rib cage rise somewhat. This particular step should be applied at the rate of one breath of air every at six second intervals (follow steps 2-6 below). If this particular strategy is successful, your puppy will spring back to life fairly quickly.
2. In cases where you are not sure of what happened you should then check to see if there are any objects or obstructions in your dog's mouth, or throat. There is also the possibility that there could be blood or mucus. In any case, foreign matter of any type needs to be removed - clear it out as much as you can.
The following steps may seem redundant, but if the dog is not breathing on its own, we may need to help it.
3. In order to make sure that the puppy's airway is clear, pull the tongue out of his mouth. Then shut his mouth gently, holding his tongue between his upper and lower lips.
4. Next pull the lips over your dog's mouth and make them secure by wrapping your hand around the mouth and under the chin.
5. With your other hand, create a funnel to the dog's nostrils which should be as airtight as possible.
6. Now slowly but smoothly take a deep breath and exhale the air gently into his nose. Repeat this breathing action on your puppy every six seconds.
