How we care for your pet
A guide to a routine operation at Abbeyfields Vets
We ask you to not feed your animal from about 7.00 O'clock the night before an operation. It is fine to give them water.
When you bring your pet in to us you will be greeted by one of our reception staff and asked to sign a consent form for the procedure.
We will always offer a pre-anaesthetic blood test. This is to check your animals Liver and Kidneys are functioning well and can cope with an anaesthetic. With Bitch speys and other 
more invasive procedures we also offer a clotting test to make sure that your pet does not have a clotting disorder (we would always recommend this in Doberman and Weimeraner dogs who are more prone to clotting problems) These tests are completely optional and we will not try to push you into having anything that you do not want.
We will then take your pet and weigh them so we can accurately calculate the doses of anaesthetic drugs to give them.
A Veterinary Surgeon will then give your pet a full pre-anaesthetic health check.
We then take them to a nice comfortable kennel where they will rest for the day. If you wanted to bring a toy or favourite blanket so that your pet feels more at home for the day that is great.
About half an hour before the procedure your pet will be sedated and given pain-relief by a small injection under the skin.
When your pet is sleepy we then take them to the theatre where they receive an anaesthetic injection and attach them to the anaesthetic machine. We put all our monitoring equipment on them, prepare the site and perform the operation. We always have a Veterinary Nurse closely monitoring the anaesthetics.
For routine procedures sutures are placed underneath the skin to prevent your pet being irritated by the wound and we try not to use the big cone collars if possible as we find pets get very stressed with these.
Once the procedure is over, we reverse the sedation and the pets wake up slowly in a comfortable bed.
We take all animals out to toilet in the afternoon and give them lots of fuss.
When you come to collect your pet, a Vet or Nurse will go through all the discharge instructions and dispense any pain relief or anti-biotic tablets required.
We provide our own 24hour emergency service so if you have any concerns at all in the evening you can talk to a vet that knows your pet well.
We see every pet back for post-operative check 2 days later to make sure everything is ok and wounds are healing well. These 
are included in the price for all routine procedures.
