Quick sedation gets a closer look in dogs and cats
CURRENT BRIEF VERSION: Dr. Andy Roark’s How Do You Treat That? podcast turned this week to a familiar exam-room problem: how to sedate dogs and cats quickly for short procedures without defaulting to full general anesthesia. In the March 17 episode, Tasha McNerney, CVT, VTS (Anesthesia & Analgesia), outlined a practical approach built around reversible sedation protocols, multimodal analgesia, and local blocks, with an emphasis on short procedures such as radiographs, wound care, and diagnostics. Roark framed the discussion around healthy patients without major comorbidities, and around real-world cases where time, patient stress, or client finances make a brief sedation approach more practical than full anesthesia. (drandyroark.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary teams, the takeaway is that “quick sedation” isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about reducing fear, anxiety, and stress while making necessary care safer for patients and staff. That point connects with Roark’s broader podcast conversations about high-FAS patients, low-stress handling, and the strain repeated restraint can place on technicians and support staff. Current guidance from AAHA supports multimodal protocols that pair sedatives and analgesics thoughtfully, and specifically notes the value of dexmedetomidine’s reversibility and the opioid-sparing role of local and regional anesthesia. Separate literature on pre-visit medications also shows growing support for tools such as gabapentin, trazodone, oral transmucosal dexmedetomidine in dogs, and pregabalin in cats to lower stress before the patient even reaches the clinic. (aaha.org)
What to watch: Expect more clinics to formalize short-procedure sedation pathways, especially for healthy dogs and cats needing brief low-pain or moderately painful interventions, as fear-free handling, spectrum-of-care decision-making, and technician-led anesthesia workflows continue to evolve. The operational push may be as much about staff wellbeing and safer handling as it is about speed. (drandyroark.com)