|
Weekend
January 20/21, 2001
Pet
CPR
From
fires to floods to accidents, our pets are often in
danger too. How do save your kittens lives if they stopped
breathing after being caught in a fire?
How do you do that? With a little help from the American
Red Cross. Charles James of the Red Cross in Los Angeles
teaches pet CPR classes. They are so popular they've
now made this new home video.
So how do you do it? It's similar to techniques used
on people. Charles says:
- Check the dog if it's unconscious you want to check
for breathing.
- Then you want to find out if it has a pulse.
- If you want to do CPR bend elbow to where leg meets
body, give five compressions.
And if the dog is choking, Charles says, "If you come
in and dog is choking get behind them put fist in
belly pull up just like Heimlich maneuver."
Here the demonstration is being done on a dog, but
it works for cats too, really any small animal. Pets
now live in some 60 million American households. Pet
owner Melissa Grebelsky says, "I took it because I
wanted to make sure I could save [my pet] if she choked
on a bone. I didn't want to watch as she possibly
died."
There are now some 500 different locations around
the country offering the class. There's a book, and
now the new video. So if you love your pet, you need
to be prepared.
Charles says, "We wanted to offer something a little different
that would reinforce the first aid skills of training
that we already offer out there and do it in a way they
can do it on pets that are so important in their lives.
|
Red
Cross