Canine Endotracheal Tube Size Selection
Welcome! Anesthesia with Intention is designed to help you build sound fundamentals in anesthesia. Spending time establishing a firm foundation will pay huge dividends in developing confidence in anesthesia decision making.
This month’s topic is Anesthesia for the Health Canine Patient.
The healthy dog is a great starting point for delving into how to establish good anesthesia habits as it familiarizes you with the various steps involved in anesthesia decision making and anesthesia delivery techniques.
The main video presentation is supplemented with additional stand alone video shorts that delve into certain important anesthesia topics in more detail and that serve as practice tips.
Please share any interesting experiences you have as you apply your new found knowledge to your delivery of anesthesia to your patients. Your comments will be helpful to your colleagues and will allow us, your mentors, to fine tune our focus during the webinar.
Be sure to note the date of this month’s live Q&A webinar, also listed in the menu. It’s a great chance to ask questions, review cases, and clarify anything that comes up during the month.
In the downloadable resources section at the top of the page — you’ll find an anesthesia record template there. We strongly encourage you to use it. It helps you more easily detect trends in changes of your patients vital signs during anesthesia.
Analyzing the anesthesia record of a patient that has thrown you curveballs or had adverse responses to anesthesia is a very powerful learning tool: We learn most when things do not go as planned – as long as we take the time to dissect what happened.
Let’s get started!
Watch video: Introduction (4)
Hey Nicole,
We had just changed our clocks too wished helps to add to the confusion. The webinar was recorded and is now on the site. You can find it on your dashboard, under webinar recordings.
Thanku Dr Brooke thats perfect and along the lines I was thinking . Really appreciate ur help
Thanks Nicole
Post/Query From Nicole Blyth
March 5, 2026 at 11:44 am
Hi could I have some drug help please I have a 6mth cat to catrate next week with a heart murmur grade 2 out of 6 left sided normal rate no clinical signs of HF. Im thinking probably torb and alfaxan i/m may be the safest option but what r ur thoughts please. The owner has declined an echo. Our usual protocol for cat castrate is quad of ketamine, medetomidine, midazolam and bup but don't want domitor really.
Here are some general recommendations assuming that 1) chest x rays don't show enlarged pulmonary veins, 2) has normal cardiac silhouette and 3) has no history of exercise intolerance or open mouth breathing during exercise:
Oral gabapentin sufficient to cause compliance and lack of reactivity when handled anywhere from 100 to 200 mg at least two hours prior to admission
IM butorphanol + alfaxalone
place IV catheter
induce with additional IV alfaxalone
Intubate
place on oxygen
local lidocaine testicular blocks bilaterally
turn iso on if needed but probably won't given how short the procedure is
listen carefully for upper respiratory noises such as gurgling both before and also in the half hour or so after extubation and treat with IM glycopyrrolate 0.01 mg/kg
NB
Hi Nicole
Wow there's something about you and Spaniels! This uterine stump I have also seen a few times through out my career; a few were my own and others were cases that vets called me about. All just resolved with TLC. I only had the luxury of having one patient have an ultrasound and she too had a swollen uterine (which we do not routinely ultra sound so it is a bit hard to know how much of that swelling is excessive vs normal). I have heard about the ulcerated uterine artery but I suspect whatever is going is just secondary to surgical technique and likely something we will never really identify as they resolve (so no post-mortem or second surgery). I would be curious to know what was seen not he repeat scan.
I will say that I am glad to hear that the January case had a bleeding disorder as this allows us to understand what happened. I still would not be doing a clotting profile on every case as these types are so rare but they are scary. I would say that if the clotting could have been identified before the second surgery, that would have been nice but often, timing is not in our favor when it comes to these sort of complications.
Questions & Answers (1)
Hi Dr. Brock,
I was wondering if I could ask a question about a reply you had given last month to a colleague's question about a feline neuter anesthetic protocol for a cat with a heart murmur. You had mentioned at the end: "Listen carefully for upper respiratory noises such as gurgling both before and also in the half hour or so after extubation and treat with IM glycopyrrolate at 0.01mg/kg." I do sometimes hear this in feline patients after extubation during neuter procedures, (does not occur in patients we do IM sedation for other procedures and are not intubated). I was told or assumed it may be due to the lidocaine spray upon intubation and we tell clients this should resolve within 24-48h. Should I be treating this with glycopyrrolate and is the lidocaine spray the actual reason for this??
A question for Dr. Sylvestre also: I was just looking for the spay and neuter workshop to see if I could watch the cryptorchid videos, do we still have access to this?
Thank you very much,
Tina
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