The side effects would be a lower heart rate, a lower respiration rate. That's just part of anesthesia. Changes in blood pressure and sedation itself are all side effects.

In general, we tend to think about the Maine Coon. They are at higher risk for a heart disease called HCM, which is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. That's a disease that they can hide. They don't necessarily have to show the symptoms or have a murmur to have heart disease. And that breed's a higher risk as are our Persians—our brachycephalic, or our smooshed-face breeds, because of the breathing. And so, when we think about the dog world, we think about bulldogs and how they recover. And so we have cats like that that already aren't breathing "normal" before anesthesia. And so then you're asking them to recover from a procedure, which makes it worth taking extra care to monitor those guys.

We tend to minimize that risk by having a trained veterinary staff monitor your pet. Not only is your cat connected to certain machines like an EKG, but we also measure oxygen saturation, blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration rate. But also, you have a physical person that's trained to monitor them for any problems that might happen.

Obesity's a big one in our cats. Many of our indoor cats are overweight, and so that's an increased risk for them. It's harder to breathe, harder to recover, and they take longer to recover. So that's a big one. Other ones would be age is not necessarily a disease, but we know that they can handle things differently. And the older the pet, the more likely it is that another illness is going on, like kidney disease or thyroid disease in our cats.

That's right. You don't care the percentages of how low the risk is; you just want to know, is your cat going to be okay? And I think that comes through the relationship of knowing your cat, through the physical exam, through the blood work, and the test. But we also look at your cat individually, and we talk to you. It's a conversation, and so we speak with you about those risks individually. And again, we weigh the risk and the reward and talk about that.