Heart rate dropping and blood pressure dropping are two possible risks from surgery. And sometimes, if they have an underlying condition that we weren't aware of, anesthesia could make that worse. Afterward, the side effects might be swelling, pain, and other things that we'll want to control with either laser therapy or medications.

Much like they use in human medicine, our monitoring equipment helps with measuring. We also have them on a ventilator to breathe during anesthesia, so we don't have to worry about them not taking breaths or not breathing well. And then I think just the personal touch of having a trained staff member together to monitor your pet. So not only do we do a complete physical exam before the surgery and monitor them during, but we also have someone watching them during recovery.

There’s local and general anesthesia. So any type of surgical or painful procedure, we would want to use some type of local, topical, IV, or general anesthesia. And part of the anesthesia benefit is to not have them moving.

Prevention. We’re all about prevention. So by preventing the problem initially through monitoring and blood work before surgery, we can catch things ahead of time before they become problems. For example, we may leave that intubation tube longer in some of our English Bulldogs to help with breathing.

We always worry about our brachycephalic breeds, which, if you don't know that big term, are the smush-faced breeds. These are your English Bulldogs, your Pekingese—dogs that don't breathe well before surgery and anesthesia, and so, during recovery, they might be at higher risk.