That depends on the dog, but also you. So if you have a bad back or you have trouble getting the pet in and out of the tub, of course, I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself doing it at home. But if you have the supplies, you feel comfortable doing it; you know what you're doing; I think it's OK to do the bathing at home. That's what I do for my dogs. But if you have a certain breed that requires haircutting, you need to go to a groomer. Because obviously, they're trained to do that. They have the right equipment. One thing I do want to mention for sure is you never, ever want to use scissors on your pet at home. I've seen a lot of pets come in with cuts on their skin, especially cats. Their skin is just so thin and you don't realize that you're pulling up on it to cut out a mat. Just never, ever use scissors. It's just really scary. And sometimes, I have to put stitches in these cats. So be careful.

I would say no unless your dog has very sensitive skin. You can cause irritations if you're using harsh shampoos or leave on conditioners. I have seen a few dogs have a reaction to certain types of shampoos. And if you're doing it so often that you might dry out their coat, I guess so. I really haven't seen that. It's a lot of work to bathe the dogs, so I don't typically see people overdoing it. But just use your best judgment. If you feel like the coat's looking dry and flaky, you might want to cut back a little bit.

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.