Yesterday when I picked up Vixen I asked Dr. Bond to verbally walk
through the surgical process from the time I drop Vixen off until I
pick her up in the evening.  While I won't bore you with all the
details I would like to share a few items with you.  At our vet clinic
when the animals are dropped off for surgery, they are placed in a
room with lots of activity from the vets and assistants.  Each time
someone passes the cage, they talk to the animal and reach out to it.
This helps to calm and aclimate the animal before surgery.  The idea
is to reduce the stress on the animal.  As in the case of ferrets,
for anesthesia they are placed in a glass type case with a tube
attached for the gas to go into the case and all the time there is
still activity.  The ferret peacefully goes to sleep.  When the ferret
is taken out of the case an anesthesia muzzle or mask is used.  The
ferret is awake just a few minutes after surgery and is given what
ever they need to make their recovery easier.  I found this quite
interesting and thought others might be interested to.  Some vets may
not use gas, they may use injection.  You may want to check with your
vet to see what the procedure is.  It does help to know more about it.
I've often worried about the anesthesia procedure because animals
can't understand what is happening to them and they might be very
frightened but after learning what I did yesterday, I feel much
better.   Our vet was very helpful and informative.
 
Hugs!  tle
 
[Posted in FML issue 0929]