In today’s blog i’m going to talk about First Aid, the basic aims of first aid, ABC procedure and the signs of life and death.

So first aid is very important if you or somebody else accidentally hit or injure a dog in a car accident, during that time you can call for help to the nearest vet clinic and while you’re waiting for the vet, you can check if the dog is alive, does it have pulse. However, if the dog is awake and aggressive do not touch him just make sure he’s safe and no car is going to hit him.

What is first aid?
First aid is the immediate treatment of injured animals or those suffering from illness.

The aims of first aid is to preserve life.
To reduce pain and discomfort
To prevent further damage e.g. if a dog is lying on the middle of the road unconscious, very carefully with someone’s help put a blanket underneath the dog to move him away from the road to prevent further damage or even death.
Promote recovery

So when you are present with an injured dog and you’re waiting for help. You can perform three easy ABC procedures. ABC procedure help to check if the animal is alive and breathing.
A – Airways
When checking the airways always make sure the mouth is empty that there’s no foreign objects, which would make the animal difficult to breath, then push the tongue to the side and extend head and neck upwards.
B – Breathing
If the animal is not breathing for over 1 minutes, you have to take action. During that time the mucous membrane (gums in your mouth) will turn blue from lack of oxygen in the body.
You can perform CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) it’s similar to humans.
Chest compression – put pressure on the chest
Mouth to mouth in humans but in animals you would blow the air through the nose as the air in the mouth could easily escape on the sides. Do not do that with wild animals.
C – Circulation
Check pulse in the inner side of the thigh (femoral vein). To check the pulse you have to put pressure on the vein to feel it. Then you can count the beats for 15 seconds and then multiply it by 4, this will give you the pulse.




Signs that the animal is alive
If the animal is alive you could feel the heartbeat as well as the pulse. The obvious thing it would be breathing the chest moving up and down. You can also check the mucous membrane if it’s pink that’s perfect it means there’s good circulation.
The capillary refill time should be normal 1-2 seconds.
Capillary refill time is when you put pressure on the gums you can see a white mark appearing and if the animal is healthy that mark should be gone in 1-2 seconds.
Dog’s body temperature is between 38.2 – 39.3 C

Signs that the animal is dead
You can observe that there’s no breathing and no pulse. The dog is not moving the reflexes are not working. The pupils are dilated. The body temperature would drop.

So there you go a short introduction to what first aid is. Hopefully no one will have to do it in the future, and always keep your dogs on lead when walking near a busy road, because they might jump out on to the road anytime.
Be safe out there my furry friends.

Love Gina