What happens to my dog during an X-ray?

For x-rays, most of our patients are fairly cooperative in what we're asking them to do. If they're not sedated, the two most common positions are lying on the side view and lying on the back view. So they lay on a table, and we take a picture of them. We may try to help them be calmer by petting them and talking calmly to them. It's a darker room, so there's less stimulus. Then, if we need to give them anything to calm them, we'll do that as well. We have to use some gentle restraint to keep them still, but most of them are very cooperative. Some of them are not, and that's when the sedation comes in.

Something we take for granted, which you may not know, is that we are in the x-ray room with them. If they are sedated, we may position them and step out of the x-ray room. But our x-ray is set up in a way that our technicians or assistants are with your pet, so they're not left alone. A lot of times, when we go have x-rays, the technician will step out of the room, and we're totally by ourselves, but we can't tell a pet to just stay in a strange area in a strange position. So we're in there with them, they're not left alone, and we're helping them get the best image needed for the veterinarian. The calmer they are, the faster we can work and get that image for you.