How to Properly Give Aid to Your Pet’s Injuries
Although your pet may be the nicest pet on the block, an injured pet can bite when someone is trying to treat their wounds. When providing aid to your pet you may want to put a muzzle around them so you won’t be injured in the process. If you don’t have a muzzle you can create a makeshift one by wrapping a piece of gauze or light rope around your pet’s mouth. Wrap the muzzle around several ties and then tie behind their ears. Don’t pull too tight or have the muzzle wrapped around so tight that your pet may experience difficulty breathing. If your pet starts getting sick or acting strange, loosen or take off the muzzle. If your pet is too small to wear a muzzle, put a towel over their head.
The next thing to do to properly give aid to your pet is to stop the bleeding. Apply pressure to the injury with your hand or with a clean cloth. Keep the pressure on the injury until the bleeding stops, if the bleeding doesn’t stop take your pet to the vet right away. Once you have controlled the bleeding start trimming away the hair around the injury. Scissors are okay but clippers are much better. Before you start clipping apply a thin layer of Vaseline or a similar product to keep falling hairs from sticking to the wound. Any hairs that get on the injury should be washed off right away. Be sure to get all hairs away from the wound to avoid infection.
Be sure to wash the injury to prevent infections. Soap and water will help cleanse the wound but don’t use hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol when cleaning the injuries. Pets will naturally heal their own injuries by licking it. This is a normal and natural thing for your pet to do, so don’t try to stop them. Licking helps to keep the wound clean and increase the healing process. However, if your pet requires stitches for those injuries, try to cut down on any excessive licking to prevent them licking the stitches off. You may want to get an Elizabethan collar to prevent your pet from licking stitches. However, if your pet isn’t licking in an excessive manner there is no need to put a collar on them.
A few hours after you have stopped the bleeding take the bandage off of the injury so the injury can breathe and get some sunshine. Natural exposure helps tremendously but an injury that is always bandaged can do more harm than good. Most injuries will heal on its own but if you notice an abscess (pus) growing on the injury that means an infection has built up and could spread internally. If this is the case, do not try to provide any aid to your pet take them to the vet to have it drained. And if the injury is deep and there is a lot of blood go ahead and take your pet to the vet and let the experts properly aid the injury.
