By Brent Stewart
The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois)
Copyright 2007 The Pantagraph
MARION, Ill. — Bob Loftus has had a lot of experiences in his many years as an EMT, but one class he now teaches, he says, usually gets a raised eyebrow.
“Most people say ‘CPR on a dog, no way,”’ he says.
Loftus is the owner of EMT Chief and Associates, an EMT education and consulting business in Marion. He’s also been an American Heart Association CPR instructor for 35 years.
The last three years, he has taught a one night Dog CPR class, offered through John A. Logan College.
“It’s not like I came up with the idea on my own,” Loftus explained. “The Red Cross has been doing pet CPR for a long time.”
Having three dogs himself, Loftus knows how important the family pet is, and how easily accidents can happen.
“I think of puppies like toddlers,” he said. “They get into things, they chew on wires. In that instance, a good electrical shock will actually stop their heart.”
Typically, he said, animals won’t cardiac arrest, but teaching CPR is a logical extension of having to provide mouth to mouth. Fortunately, there are enough similarities that some human CPR techniques can be easily modified to use on dogs.
Mouth to mouth would actually be more of a “mouth to muzzle.” The mouth is held shut and air is blown into the snout.
“In every animal, you’ve got somewhat of an elongated muzzle so you can get good ventilation,” he said. “Even on a pug, as long as you close the mouth and blow through the nose, you’re still going to get the same effect.
“You’re going to get the chest to rise, just like you were doing mouth to mouth on a human.”
In cardiac resuscitation, on a human, the chest compressions would be concentrated on the middle of the chest. A dog, however, should be placed on its right side and a point found between the third and fifth rib, where the rib cage could be compressed, instead of the sternum.
Pushing on the left ribcage is the way to insure that you are squeezing hard enough to cause the blood to circulate.
“It’s still effective,” Loftus explained, “because the mechanism is that you’re squeezing the heart, pushing the blood out, that blood circulates through the lungs and picks up the oxygen in there.”
Karen Jensen was one of the attendees at a recent class. She works at Indian Creek Kennel in Carbondale and also has two cats and a dog of her own.
“I felt that it’d probably be a good idea to know how to do,” she said. “There are instances where animals get sick and you have to rush them to the vet.”
Loftus hopes to offer the class again in the summer, as he tries to do every semester. There are always new pet owners finding out about the class and deciding that it’s something they need to know.
“Pets are part of the family,” he said. “If you’re willing to take a CPR class for loved ones, then here’s an opportunity to also be prepared for when your animal gets in trouble.”