Vet nurse warns 90% of dog owners don't know life-saving skill

A veterinary nurse has shared important advice for dog owners, as it could save your pet's life. TikTok user and dog owner Jade The Vet Nurse (@jade.the.vet.nurs) often shares informative videos with her 96,000 followers. In a recent post, she highlighted a life-saving skill animal lovers will want to learn.

Jade claimed: "90% of dog owners don't know how to give CPR." Keen to help, she then shared a video demonstrating what to do if you ever need to give a dog CPR.

She said: "Your dog has collapsed and they're not breathing. Would you know what to do? Around 75 to 90% of pet owners do not know how to give effective CPR to their pets. I'm on a mission as a UK-registered vet nurse to educate pet owners on how to give effective CPR as a method of first aid should the worst happen."

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The expert explained: "Firstly, we need to establish if CPR is definitely necessary. We need to do an initial triage and remember A, B and C. A is for airway, open up the dog's mouth, pull their tongue right forward get a good look at the back of their throat. Is it clear? Is there anything obstructing their airway?

"You need to make sure the airway is clear to give effective CPR. If the airway is blocked or your dog is choking, I have got a separate video on what to do if your dog is choking. Once you know the airway is clear, we move on to B, and B is for breathing.

"For this, we need to get down to chest height of the dog and watch. Can you see if their chest is rising and falling? If you can't see the chest rising and falling, place their nose to your cheek, can you feel any breath on the side of your cheek? Can you hear that they're breathing?"

She continued: "If not, check the colour of their gums. Are they turning a shade of blue or purple? If yes, there's already oxygen deprivation, in which case we move on to C, which is for circulation. Can you feel a pulse? Place your hand behind your dog's elbow on their ribs, and can you feel a heartbeat? This can sometimes be a little bit challenging in dogs that are overweight. You can also try and place two fingers on the inside of their upper thigh and try and feel a femoral pulse. If there's no pulse, there's no heartbeat, they're not breathing, they're going a shade of blue or purple, then we need to start CPR."

Jade advised: "First things first, if you haven't already, you need to call your vet and alert them of the situation. They will also be able to give you further advice on the phone. You need to make sure that your dog is laying on a flat hard surface, ideally on their right-hand side. If you have got a very large dog who is laying on the left hand side and you are unable to flip them over do not worry, just continue with CPR with them laying on the left, because any CPR is better than none."

For the next step, the vet nurse explained you'll need to act differently depending on the breed of dog you're helping. "Now this bit is really important, so pay attention. Where you place your hands for CPR depends on the type of breed and shape your dog is. So for dogs that are round-chested, examples of this are labradors, golden retrievers, spaniels, they have a bit of a dome here on the side, you want to place your hands on the widest part of the rib cage.

"If you have got a deep-chested dog like a doberman, an alsatian or a greyhound, who have got particularly deep-keeled chests, then you want to place your hands directly above their heart, which is just behind their elbow, so going behind the elbow.

"If you have got a wide-chested dog, such as a French bulldog or an English bulldog, who are pretty much as wide as they are tall, then you want to place these on their backs and you give the compressions directly on top in the middle of their sternum. So for this example, I'm gonna continue as if this is a labrador and if I'm gonna go for the widest part of the rib cage. What we need to do is interlock our fingers.

"We're gonna be using the heel of the palm of the hand, so elbows locked straight, shoulders directly above the dog where you're about to give the compressions, and you need to compress the chest to about 1/3 to 1/2 of the depth of their entire chest depth. So we need to do 120 compressions a minute, which works out as two compressions a second, and you can do this to the beat of 'staying alive'. You need to do this 30 times and then stop to give two breaths."

Explaining how to 'give breaths', Jade said: "To give the breaths you need to keep the dog's tongue inside their mouth and clamp your fingers around the mouth creating an airlock, place their nose into your mouth and give two breaths after each breath make sure you check the rib cage is rising sufficiently to make sure they are getting the oxygen. Don't stop after you've given the breaths, straight back into compressions. You need to keep cycling between 30 compressions and giving two breaths."

The vet nurse said she'd hope your vet will be giving you instructions, but that you can continue CPR for up to about 20 minutes, stopping every two minutes to see if there are any signs of life. "If at any point your dog starts showing signs of life and they're trying to recover, stop CPR, get them to the vet as soon as possible," she concluded. "If your dog isn't showing any signs of life yet, continue CPR or keep going as instructed by your veterinarian."