First aid may be a common skill, but what happens when the patient isnt human?
Thats the question that North Vancouver resident Michelle Sevigny faced in 2001 when her shar pei, named Dallas, was paralyzed by a spinal cord injury and had to be put down. By the time she noticed something was wrong with the dog, it was too late to save her.
Following that experience, Sevigny wondered if she could have lessened the pain felt by her dog, or if she could have noticed the injury sooner when it would have been treatable, but found instruction lacking.
To fill that void, she left her job as a Vancouver police officer and launched Dogsafe: Canine First Aid in 2006, and has since trained dog owners and professionals across Western Canada about how to care for their pets health.
She was my inspiration. I was faced with a situation that I didnt handle properly, she said. Dogs arent going to tell us whats hurting, so we talk about doing a head to tail assessment once every two weeks at best. Get your hands on your dog, smell them all over, feel them all over, look at them all over, listen to the sounds they make.
Thats a small part of what she teaches in the five different courses she offers, but it was during a routine check like that when she found a lump in the stomach of her current dog, a Rottweiler named Monty. That turned out to be a swollen spleen, a potentially serious problem.
Its usually a silent killer because they will rupture, cause a slow internal bleed and the owners dont even know, she said.
Montys story has a much happier ending the dog is still healthy, two years following surgery.
Like her, Sevigny said many of her customers come after experiencing a scare themselves, and many of her clients include professionals such as dog walkers or groomers.
People understand if they give their dogs to a dog walker, dog sitter, dog daycare they want them to know what to do, and people themselves want to know what to do, she said.
Aside from the two-part first aid courses, she includes a Find Fido workshop on how to organize a search for a lost dog, a special puppies workshop and a bare bones for those unable to take the full-length eight-hour course.
But her favourite part of her job, she said, with Monty curled around her feet, was the chance to work with animals full time.
I am grateful every day, she said. I meet people all the time who say, Oh, I would love to be able to work with dogs.
For more information, visit her website at www.dogsafe.ca.
