What should I bring with me for a dog emergency appointment?

If your dog's on medication, first, bring the medications with you. I know typically, in an emergency, nobody's thinking clearly. If you're able to grab the bottles and bring them with you, great. Maybe you want to make a list and just keep it handy on the fridge or something like that. If you’re going to just grab a list and note that these are the medicines my dogs are on and what they're for, do that. If it's your regular veterinarian, you may not even need that list of medications because they should have it. But you never know; it's better to be prepared.

Number two, make the veterinarian aware if the dog has ingested anything. Say they ate poison, maybe you put out rat poison, or perhaps you gave them a certain type of food, treat, or candy, or something, and it's making them sick. If you have any opportunity to bring the packaging, the labeling, from whatever they were given, especially with toxins or poisons. But if you can bring in anything that your dog may have ingested, that’s helpful.

Any pertinent medical history, any medications they may be receiving. It's great to grab those bottles to let us know because you may not always know the name of the medication or the actual milligrams or how often you're giving it. The more medical information you can give us, the better. For instance, if your pet has been exposed to something harmful, it would be very helpful if you can bring that to the hospital.