There are some times when I have a full surgical day, I’ll go straight from one procedure to make sure the animal's waking up fine, turn it over to my staff, and I have to jump back in the next surgery. That means that sometimes it will be the veterinary staff that will contact you and explains how your animal did, how they're doing now, and how long before they're awake.

I do lean on my staff quite heavily, but certainly, when possible, I try to make the phone calls myself at least to explain, "Hey, I'm done. This is how it went," because nobody knows how well it went better than me. I was the one doing it. I try to make the phone call whenever possible—either immediately after surgery, or when the client picks up at the time of discharge.

Intubating a cat is when you use an endotracheal tube that insett into the trachea, the windpipe, if you will. We do that in the vast majority of cases, especially those that require a general anesthetic. When I say general anesthetic, that is that a surgical plane, and we give them a drug to induce anesthesia, usually propofol. Once the cat loses consciousness, we insert the trach tube just described. Then the cat is breathing oxygen, and a certain gas isofluorane, cepofluorine, something like that that holds them under anesthetic for as long as they keep breathing that gas.

That is what's called general anesthetic, and that's how the bulk of our anesthetic procedures are done. Occasionally, you might have a milder surgery if I can use that term. Maybe it's a surgery to debride a wound or clean up an abscess...even a male cat neuter. These types of procedures don't require a general anesthetic because they’re pretty fast procedures. In some of those cases we can just do heavy sedation, and those cats are not always intubated for those more minor procedures because they don't entirely lose consciousness. There's pain control. They do lose consciousness, but not the ability to swallow. So, we don't have to worry about them aspirating anything.

They should be under anesthetic because, otherwise, you're cutting on a cat that's awake. I’m ot trying to be silly, but to answer that question, yes. I would think if it is a true surgery, then that cat should be under anesthesia.

Those are normal behaviors in cats. And again, I would say if they're otherwise bright and happy, eating normally, using the litter box normally, not being overly aggressive towards other animals or people, those are normal behaviors. You should be looking for deviations in different behaviors, such as changes in appetite, aggression, or litter box use.

We want to know if things are normal—if the cat's behavior, schedule, and everything are all the same, there are no changes. If the cat is coming in for a problem, we want to know what has changed and if any environmental changes have occurred, such as changes in the litter, diet, people moving in or out of the house, or other animals coming into the house. Many of those changes can cause behavior problems in cats.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily safer. It's just that you need to discuss the lifestyle of your cat with your veterinarian and decide what the best plan is in terms of vaccines.

I think it's important that you know what to be feeding your kittens, how much water to expect them to drink, how to play with the kitten, how to pick up a kitten, when the next vaccines are due, why we're giving the vaccines, and why it’s important to know when to have your kitten spayed or neutered. Those things I think are good questions to ask your veterinarian.