I have applied my disposable exam gloves.
And I'm now ready to show you guys
how I'm going to take a temperature, pulse, respiration
on this dog.
So, under normal circumstances, I highly
encourage everybody who's going to be doing
anything veterinary medicine related with their dog
that they have a muzzle on them if they feel
they might get aggressive and they have an extra person
to hold their dog.
This dog has done this presentation many times,
and so he's very calm, and he will just lay there.
And I know that he's not going to be fearful or aggressive
in any way.
But when dogs are under stress, especially if they've been hurt
or are just in a new situation, they
might get aggressive towards you.
So always make sure that you're being safe with your dog.
So, today I'm going to first start
with taking our pulse on our dog.
So our pulse is merely just the dog's heartbeat.
And so we want to make sure that we know where their heart is.
So, just like us, you can hear it better
on the left side of the dog.
This dog's a little furry, so it's kind of hard to see.
But where their elbow bends, this dog's elbow
bends about right here.
And then I put that against his body.
And that's where I'm best going to hear this dog's heart.
So I want to make sure, when I am
getting this dog's heartbeat, that he's not panting.
Because if he's panting, it makes
it more difficult to actually listen to the heart.
So it takes just a second to listen.
I make sure that I can identify the heart.
So I hear the pump, pump, pump, pump, of this dog's heart.
And then I make sure that I always have a clock,
and I'm watching the clock.
Now, we want to gauge a dog's heartbeat in beats per minute.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and listen to the dog's
heartbeat for a full minute.
Instead, I'm going to count the number of beats in 15 seconds
and multiply that by four.
OK, and he has a normal heartbeat,
and it is within normal range for a dog.
So that's how I take his heartbeat.
Now, if you don't have a stethoscope at home,
because these can get kind of expensive,
you can always just try to feel the dog's pulse and its heart
right on its chest.
That is a little bit more difficult,
and it's definitely not near as accurate.
You can also feel their artery down here.
And you can feel the heartbeat.
It's kind of up in their groin region.
And that's the femoral artery that's down there.
And we can go ahead and feel that just
as you would listen to yours here,
feel yours here on your neck.
The next thing that I'm going to show you
is how to take a dog's respiration.
And a respiration is measured in breaths per minute.
Again, I'm not going to count the breaths for a full minute.
I'm just going to do it for 15 seconds,
and then I'm going to multiply that by four.
And so we also don't want to do this
while the dog is panting because that alters their respiration.
The easiest way to do is look at this dog's chest move.
I can see it go up and down with each breath.
Now, it's rather warm today.
And because it is warm, he's going
to have a little bit of a higher respiration.
He's a double-coated dog, and he's been outside.
So he's going to have a little bit higher respiration.
But again, you just count those in breaths per minute.
Just an in and out is one breath.
And we're counting those.
So that's how you take a dog's respiration.
On some other animals, like a horse
whose nostrils move whenever they breathe,
you can watch their nostrils move.
Dogs don't move as much so it's a little bit more
difficult to do that.
And last but not least, I'm going
to show you how to take the dog's temperature.
Animal temperatures are typically taken rectally.
So that means that we're going to go take it in their rectum.
Again, if your dog is not calm or used to this
or you have never done this before,
make sure to have somebody else restraining your dog for you.
So I turned my thermometer on just as though
as you would use it at home.
Wait for it to say low.
And it's good if you can apply some lubricant
to your thermometer.
And then I insert it in.
And I just wait for it to beep, just
like you would with your own.
Now, whenever I have these thermometers at home,
I always write on the casing.
I write animal, so I know that is my animal's thermometer not
my people thermometer, and then I accidentally use it.
So a dog's temperature is kind of going
to vary a little bit on the size and the condition
of the weather that they're in and what they've been doing.
So if this dog, again, this dog has been outside in the heat,
so he might have a little bit higher of a temperature.
But I still would not expect it to go above about 102.5,
or we're going to have a fever.
Now, if it's below about 99.5, then I'm
going to be concerned that he's perhaps in shock
or he's too cold, which is something
that we would worry about in the winter.
OK, and it just beeped.
He's at 100.9.
That is very normal for a dog.
So I would not at all be concerned
about that temperature for him.
And I always make sure to clean off the thermometer.
You can use a little alcohol wipe.
And then insert it back in to its casing where we can save it
and use it.
So you may be wondering why it's important
for the everyday pet owner to know
how to do a TPR on their dog.
It is very important for you to know
how to do this on your dog, because if your dog is
in a situation where he's acting a little bit differently,
or maybe you're concerned that he was injured,
and you're not sure how much pain they're in,
the best way to determine how critical your dog is
is with this pet TPR.
If you call your veterinarian and tell them,
my dog's been injured, or my dog ran away and has
been gone for five days, and he's back
and he's acting a little bit different,
your veterinarian may ask you to take
a TPR just so that they can kind of gauge how your pet is doing.
So it's very important for a pet owner to be able to do this.
You can do this with all the different species of livestock.
Today, we're just using a dog as an example.
And it's also very important, as an owner,
for you to know what's normal for your dog.
You know your dog better than anybody else
in the entire world.
And so it's very important for you
to know what's normal for them-- how much they eat,
how much they drink every day, when they defecate,
when they urinate, what that looks like.
Because if your dog's going off schedule on its food, water,
or how it uses the restroom, then you
know that something is abnormal about them,
and you want to watch them.
Also, watch their personality.
How often do they play?
What are some of their favorite things to do?
If they're not doing those things or playing normally,
then something is wrong with your dog.