Pet First Aid Level 2 (VTQ)
Course Content
- Introduction to Pet First Aid
- Course introduction
- Course overview
- Before we start - Coronavirus COVID 19 advice for pet owners from the government
- Meet Your Vet
- Pet First Aid and The Law
- The vet and your role in first aid
- When is Veterinary Care Required?
- Keeping your pet safe in an emergency
- Car Accidents
- Pet Proofing your home
- How Pets Show Pain
- Checking Your Pet's Health and Finding Out What Is Normal
- Taking a Pulse
- Pet First Aid Kits
- CPR, Pet Accidents and First Aid
- Medical Conditions
- Types of Bleeding
- Dressings, Bandages and Controlling Bleeding
- Collaclot - Collegen pad to stop bleeding and promote clotting
- Pet Wrap Bandages
- HaemoCap™ MultiSite - Pets
- Paw Problems
- Nail and Claw Injuries
- Eye Injuries
- Bandaging the Ear
- Bandaging the Tail and Tail Injuries
- Bandage Aftercare
- Dog Digestive Process
- Vomiting in Animals
- Dehydration in Pets
- Fluid balance in dogs and cats
- Oralade - treating dehydration
- Oralade - The Science
- Pets and Illnesses
- Stings on animals
- High Temperatures and Heatstroke
- Hypothermia Treatment
- Choking Overview
- Choking
- Snake Bites
- Fleas
- Ticks and Lyme Disease
- Fly Strike
- Illnesses
- Different types and sizes of animals
- Summary of Pet First Aid
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Get StartedBandaging the Ear
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We are now going to look at bandaging a dog's ears. Now, the thing with dogs is they are either going to have up ears, or down ears, or in some cases, you have a mixture of both. But we are going to look at these individually. With Deco here, she has got the up ears, and Ella, we will have a look at bandaging a down ear. Now, it is quite easy for a dog to hurt its ears. It can put its head through a fence and rip them, or it may get in a fight with another dog, and ears are something that typically does get torn. The first thing you need to do is find out where the actual injury site is. With this, you can have a look through, you can look in the ears, inspect it, have a look through the back. You should see where the cut is. Now, because there are lots of blood vessels, you will find sometimes that they do bleed quite a lot. Have a look inside as well, to make sure that there is no damage inside the ear. In this example here, we are just going to look at having a cut to the top of the ear, but even when you can see it there, just make sure you look inside. Now, the thing with blood and ears, is if you have got up ears, and there is a cut there, the blood is going to drip downhill, so it then gets into the ear. As the blood gets into the ear, it will cause the dog to start shaking, and when it shakes, it is obviously going to cause problems with the dressing we put on there, so use some gauze pads, cotton wool, something like that. Or you can use one of these standard dressings, and open them up, and you can use this to actually mop out any blood that is in the way. Bandaging with an up ear, what we do with this, we can just pop a pad underneath here to start with. Now, if you have not got separate gauze pads in your first aid kit, you should always have these dressings. What you can do is, just cut off the bandage. Now, you have got yourself a gauze pad. With a gauze pad, we can lay this pad on the side of the face and we can fold the ear down. That way, the gauze pad is going to be keeping hold of the blood. With the pad in place, just tuck up the ends, to keep it out of her eyes. The second bandage over the outside. Then you can just make sure it is all tidy... Lift it up. Good girl... Then you can run the bandage around. You do not want to put it over too tight. We are trying to keep the bandage on to absorb the blood, but what we do not want to do is cause any restriction to her breathing, so just bring the bandage around. We just make sure that we have fully covered the dressing, and the tail here, we can bring that back around this side, and then just secure that off on the end. Now, it is a good idea with these, is to tie them into a bow. Make sure you do not get a hair caught in the knot either, because if you do need to remove this in a hurry, then we can just undo the bow, rather than do a knot, which we have to come to with scissors. Now, once the bandage is actually in place, we can check it. We can see if there is any blood still coming out. Because we folded the ends up, that will absorb the blood, but also that means that there could be quite a lot of blood there. We are not applying too much pressure on it, because we cannot because we have got these restrictions around the throat, but that should be enough to squeeze the ear. That is, we have not put the other ear under the bandage. We want to keep some of the senses. We do not want to bandage off both of the ears. Obviously, if that was damaged as well, we would need to bandage it, but try and always keep the bandage away, so this ear is fully functioning, and then we can take her to the vet to have the ear looked at. Now, with Ella, she has down ears, rather than up ears, so you can still bandage it exactly the same way, but also there is another way around of doing it, to keep the ear out of the way, by folding it upright. With this, we can still take the gauze pad, that we can lay underneath it the ear. We can still wrap it over, just to keep plenty of contact onto the ear, still look inside. Now, obviously, it is now the ear is exposed, so we just need to be careful. The bandage will also keep any dirt out. We can lay the gauze pad over the ear, and then we can run that around underneath her head, in the same way, making sure we do not put it on too tight. Make sure we keep the other ear clear, just run that around... Good girl... Once you have gone around enough, take the dressing and tie it off at the back. Again, try and do it in a bow, if you can, then just check everything is tucked in, and then make sure this ear is out, so she has got her senses there. Then just double check the wound to make sure the bleeding has stopped, and then we can transport her to the vet.
- Choose the best method for bandaging, this will depend on the breed and whether the ears are up or down naturally
- Tears and minor injuries to ears are quite common in active, playful dogs
- There are many blood vessels in the ear, so a minor tear or cut can bleed quite a lot
- Find the site of the injury and apply pressure this may be enough to stop the bleed
- Check the outside and inside of the injury site
- Try to stop any blood from dripping into the ear
- If the wound is still bleeding, use a gauze dressing and a bandage to hold it in place, make sure that the dog can breathe easily and don't bandage too tightly
- Only bandage over the injured ear
- Take your pet to the vet for treatment