Yes, that is the best advise, as the wise Dr. Bob Paddleford once told me (and he wrote a book on vet anthesthesia) "I use this combination of drugs cause I know how they work and if something goes wrong I know how to deal with it." I too have seen bad reations with all forms of anthesthesia. As far as Iso goes, it has a real excitement phase during induction so much so that at our clinic we are trying not to use it for this use but we do use it as a maintaince drug after intubation. We have had very good luck using Telazol. The induction is fast and the recovery is not as shaky as ket/ace. We do a number of pediatric spays and castrations; 6 week old kittens are smaller than most ferrets and we have not lost one to drug overdose in over a year. As for Ketamine: Yes it is an dissociative agent, which means it kinda rewires the brain so although pain may occur and stimulus may be transmitted to the brain, it is not understood as painful. understand? Good you know more than most vets. !! Ketamine actually was used very commonly and probably still is used in Human medicine. Now they have even better dissociatives in human medicine, but they work faster than what we can use. The biggest use for ketamine now is RECREATION! Yes, our 14-20 yr. old children are stealing ketamine or Special K as it is known on the street, and dehydrating it and smoking it. Interestingly enough when they asked people what they remembered about recovery from ketamine the common responce (> 35%) was they saw.... BIG WHITE MICE. now what can these kids find so exciting about Big WHITE MICE>? well anyway, more animals to save. --Dr. Ben, the TOucan VEt Dr. Benjamin A. Otten, DVM Windham Veterinary Clinic Brattleboro, VT 05301 (802) 254-9412 [Posted in FML issue 2363]