Cardiopulmonary Respiration (CPR) for DogDog CPR applied only when the animal loses his pulse, in other words, if the heart stops beating. This can happen in a cardiac arrest. The emergency procedure until the vet arrives is the following: Before proceeding, make sure that the heart has indeed stopped beating. If an unconscious patient is showing no signs of chest wall expansion, place him on his side on a firm surface. Open and assess the back of the throat area (An unconscious patient might have a head and/or spinal cord injury. Manipulate these areas as little as possible.). Carefully sweep the back of the mouth with a finger (make sure you do NOT push an object further into the airway). Remove any object or secretions with finger (if necessary, gently use tweezers or small needle-nosed pliers). Wipe away blood or other fluids with a soft cloth. If the airway is still blocked, perform 5 to 10 abdominal thrusts to attempt clearance. To perform abdominal thrusts, place the animal on his side on a firm surface or allow him to continue standing. Then, place your arms around the animal's waist. Close your hands together to make a fist and place the fist and place the fist just behind the last rib. Compress the abdomen by pushing up with this fist five times in a quick and rapid manner. (This is similar to the Heimlich maneuver commonly performed on humans to dislodge material in the throat.) Repeat if necessary to clear airway - airway must be clear before proceeding to "Breathing" step. The Breathing or "artificial respiration" is done once the airway is clear. Get oxygen into the animal's lungs through mouth-to-nose artificial respiration: Extend neck, pull tongue forward, close jaws over tongue. Perform 5 to 6 forceful mouth-to-nose (cover both their nose and mouth) ventilation. Chest wall should rise and fall with each ventilation. Reassess breathing and check pulse. Circulation stage: If there is no heartbeat, initiate chest compression. With the animal lying on his side, compress chest wall with one or two hands placed on the widest part of the chest wall. From there, depress rib cage 1.5 to 3.0 inches - dependent on the size of animal. The smaller the animal, the less depth of compression. Administer the following schedule of compression and breathing. The compression and breathes should occur with a pause in between each long enough to say, "one one thousand". Use this to count your compression as well -- ie. one one thousand, two two thousand, three three thousand, etc. - Dogs 60 pounds plus - 15 compression, followed by 2 breathes.
- Animals 11 to 59 pounds - 20 to 25 compression, followed by 2 to 4 breathes.
- Animals 5 to 10 pounds - 30 to 35 compression, followed by 5 breathes.
- Animals less than 5 pounds - place hands around rib cage and apply cardiac massage, followed by 5 breathes.
Each "set" of compression/breathes should be administered four times; then, recheck for spontaneous heartbeat or breathing. Continue CPR until your pet starts breathing on their own and their heartbeat resumes, or you become too exhausted to continue or another person takes your place and continues CPR
Important: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is performed more efficiently by two people -- one person to perform chest compression and the other person to perform artificial ventilation and perform evaluation (checking for pulse and spontaneous breathing). Remember that it is always important for you to get in touch with the vet as soon as possible. | 
