Amazing first aid tips

I went to IVEC today and took a five hour course on pet first aid and pet CPR. It was amazing. Absolutely the best money I've ever spent.

I learned on cat tip that I wish I had known years ago.

If you take two clips (one inch wide) and clip them to the nape of the cat's neck, about 80-85 percent of cats will just kind of zone out. You can mess with them, work with them, they just sit there. You just use clips like you would get at the office supply store to hold papers, but they have to be the one inch wide ones and for a really angry cat you might try three clips.

For any of you who are Star Trek fans I swear it was like watching a Vulcan grip that Spock used to knock people out.

It didn't actually knock the cat out though, it just made it super mellow. I swear all the people in the room were awestruck. It was as if we had just witnessed magic.

I also learned that if you are with pets, never be without your handy box of Saran wrap. I swear the people who make Saran Wrap need to employ a whole new marketing campaign for pet first aid. If you have Saran wrap and two sturdy sticks or poles you can make a stretcher strong enough for a 70 pound dog! Plus, you can immobolize the dog on the stretcher using more Saran wrap.

You can also use Saran wrap to cover a sucking chest wound or to keep any large wound clean until it can be seen by a vet.

To make a stretcher, you make it wide enough to hold the dog and taper it so that you can drag one end (if you are alone, say in the woods and need to pull the dog out). You then weave the Saran wrap around the poles several times back and forth, then lay the dog on its side and wrap it up so it can't move. The only flaw is if the dog is active enough that it can get its toenails through the wrap, then it won't work.

If anyone ever gets a chance to take one of the first aid classes IVEC offers, I highly recommend it.

Plus, great Kudos to the staff as two of the demo dogs they used were pit bulls and they were the absolute most sweetest dogs ever. One dog patiently let all 25 people practice getting it in the proper headlock for restraint and then practice catching it with a leash in order to restrain it without being injured.

The other dog let all 25 people practice bandaging its foot. I wish Steve Talley, IACC administrator could have seen this. Perhaps it would make him change his mind on allowing people to adopt out pits from the shelter.