Dog First Aid

Why Keep a Dog First Aid Kit?

Most incidents with dogs are minor and happen at the least convenient moment. A cut pad on a Sunday walk, a grass seed working into an ear, a torn nail on the way back from the beach. A kit does not replace a vet. It buys you the time to reach one, and it stops a small problem becoming an infected one while you wait for Monday morning.

The Australian Problems Worth Preparing For

Paralysis ticks

Along the east coast from roughly Cape York to eastern Victoria, a paralysis tick can put a dog down in under 24 hours. The first signs are usually a wobble in the back legs and a change in the bark. This is not something to treat at home. Get to a vet immediately, keep the dog cool and calm, and do not offer food or water, because a dog losing throat control can inhale it. Carry a tick remover and check your dog by hand after any bush walk, working from the nose backwards.

Snake bite

Keep the dog still and carry it if you can, because movement moves venom. Do not wash the bite, do not cut, do not apply a tourniquet. Go straight to a vet and phone ahead so antivenom is ready when you arrive.

Grass seeds

Between ears, eyes, paws and armpits, grass seeds account for more spring vet visits than almost anything else. If you can see the whole seed and it has not broken the skin, tweezers will do. Once it is under the skin it will keep travelling, and that is a vet job.

Heat

Wet the belly, groin and paws with cool water, not ice, and get air moving over the dog. Ice constricts the blood vessels you need open.

What Goes in the Kit

Flushing and dressing

Saline for flushing wounds and eyes, non stick dressings, and self adhesive bandage that grips itself rather than fur. Ordinary sticking plaster is close to useless on a dog. Our ear flush solution and sterile eye drops sit around $29 to $31 and are the two things you will reach for most.

Something to measure with

A thermometer tells you whether you are dealing with an inconvenience or an emergency. Normal for a dog is roughly 38 to 39.2 degrees. Our pulse oximeter at around $151 gives oxygen saturation and heart rate, which is the first thing a vet asks for over the phone.

An assembled kit

Ours run from around $65 for the essentials to $549 for a family kit that covers people as well as pets. The travel kit at $75 is the one most owners keep in the car.

Where to Keep It

Two kits beat one large kit, because the place a problem happens is rarely the place your supplies are. Most owners settle on one at home and one in the boot. Check expiry dates when the clocks change, twice a year, so you are not discovering an expired saline sachet at the worst moment.

Trusted by RPBA Breeders

Responsible Pet Breeders Australia members keep a kit in the whelping room and a second in the car, and add a tick remover and a thermometer to both as the first two things worth having.