A vet nurse has shared an essential step owners must take if their big dogs collapse.
Jade, a registered veterinary nurse and mum to three dogs and three tortoises, regularly gives pet care advice and information on social media. On Saturday, February 15 she posted a TikTok video explaining what to do if your dog heavier than 7kg collapsed and stopped breathing.
This would be a worrying situation for any big dog owner, leading you to maybe panic and feel unsure about what to do.
Obviously, your first point of call should be to consult and take them to a vet to check your pet over. However, Jade has also shared her advice if you attempt emergency CPR on your pet in an emergency.
In the TikTok video Jade used a soft toy dog to demonstrate how to do this. She said: “Your dog has collapsed and they’re not breathing. What do you do?
“Every dog owner should know CPR so save this video to your favourites because you don’t know if and when you might need it.”
The vet nurse goes on to say if a dog has collapsed and is not breathing you will have to perform an “initial assessment.” To do this, remember ABC – A stands for airway.
Jade instructs to open up the dog’s mouth, pull its tongue out and check its airway to see if it’s clear. If it isn’t clear and there’s something obstructing it, she advises you to try and remove it, “ideally using one finger in a swooping motion, get behind the object and pop it out.”
She added: “If it’s a ball or something that’s gone in quite deep and you cannot remove it with that one finger swooping motion pop the dog on their back, extend their neck. Using your thumbs you need to push the item up and out the airway to remove it.”
The vet nurse said once the airway is clear move onto ‘B’, which stands for breathing. She instructs to get down to face level with the dog and look at its chest to observe if you can see it rising and falling.
If you can’t, put your cheek to its nose and see if you can feel the dog’s breath on your cheek or hear the sound of it breathing. Jade also said to look at the colour of its gums and check if it is going blue or people.
She noted that if the dog’s gums are becoming blue or people there’s “already oxygen deprivation” so the next step is to move onto ‘C’ for circulation. Jade directs you to put your hand on the dog’s chest and see if you can feel its heart.
If you can’t feel its heartbeat, she says to put two fingers on the inside of its upper thigh and observe if you can feel a pulse. She said: “If there’s no pulse, there’s no heartbeat, they’re not breathing and they’re going blue we need to start CPR.
“If you haven’t already, call your vet just to alert them to the situation. They should be able to provide you with advice on the phone but in the meantime lay the dog out on a flat, hard surface, ideally on their right-hand side.”
Jade mentioned that if the dog is laying on its left-hand side and you’re unable to flip it over, you shouldn’t worry about it and continue the procedure with the dog on its left because “any CPR is better than none.” To start the compressions, she advises to interlock your fingers, lock your elbows and have your shoulders directly over the dog.
She stated you will be using the heel of the palm of your hand but “where you place this varies on the type of that you’re giving CPR to. The vet nurse elaborated: “So, for round-chested dogs, labradors, golden retrievers, you want to place your hands on the widest part of the chest.
“If it is a deep-chested dog like a German shepherd or a greyhound you want to place your hands directly above their heart. A dog’s heart falls just behind their elbows so if you bring the elbow back where that naturally lands is where their heart is so for deep-chested dogs that’s where you want to give your compressions.”
Jade said if the dog is “wide-chested” like a bulldog, place it on its back and give the compressions “directly in the middle of their sternum. She continued demonstrating CPR on the dog toy as if it was a deep-chested dog and instructed to give 30 compressions at a rate of two compressions per second.
The vet nurse added that some people find it easier to do this to the beat of the song ‘Staying Alive’. She continued: “You need to compress a third to a half of the depth of the dog’s entire chest depth.
“I know it sounds a lot but it is necessary so give them those 30 compressions. Once you’ve finished those, you need to give two breaths.”
Jade stated you need to keep the dog’s tongue inside its mouth and use your hands to “completely surround and close the mouth creating an air lock.” Then, she said to put the dog’s nose inside your mouth and give two breaths.
She added: “Check after every breath that that chest is rising to make sure that they are getting sufficient oxygen in there.” After this, Jade instructed to go back to doing the 30 chest compressions.
The dog expert said you need to carry out a full two-minute cycle of CPR between the chest compressions and giving breaths before you stop to check if the dog is breathing, if there is a heart rate and if there is a pulse. Jade said if the answer to those three questions is ‘no’, resume CPR for another two minutes and then check again.
She concluded: “If at any point the dog starts breathing, you can feel a heartbeat or there is a pulse then stop CPR and get the dog to the vet as soon as possible. This kind of CPR is used for dogs over seven kilos, small dogs and cats have a different method of delivering compressions so I’ll do a different video to teach you that one but in the meantime if you haven’t already, please do save this video, share it with any of your other friends that have dogs because I genuinely believe every single dog owner should know CPR.
“You might need it for your dog, you might need it for someone else’s dog but knowing CPR could save a life.” Jade’s TikTok video has amassed an impressive 2.8 million views in just two days, as well as 211,900 likes, 1,945 comments and 173,100 users have saved it to their favourites.
One dog owner commented: “I’m so anxious just watching this. it’s good to know but I hope I will never need to do it on my dog.” Another shared a sad story about when they had to perform CPR on their dog.
They said: “I had to do this with our dog, myself & my son took it in turns, we brought him back but sad to say he passed. Apparently he had underlying issues that we didn’t know about, we tried so hard to save him…he was a truly amazing dog!
“Thank you for your detailed information and hopefully will help anyone in this awful situation, just wish there was more info for helping yr furry companion.” A third user added: “As a vet surgeon this is great.”
