Every veterinary emergency has the same two problems: finding the right number, and deciding what you can spend, both at the worst possible moment.
Sorting them out in advance takes about ten minutes.
1. Your out-of-hours provider
Find out who covers your practice at night and at weekends. Many practices now use a separate emergency provider at a different address, sometimes a considerable distance away.
Write down:
- The name and full address
- The phone number
- How long it takes to drive there, checked on a map
- Whether they require you to ring first
That last point matters — most emergency practices want a call so they can prepare, and some will direct you elsewhere.
Put it in your phone, and write it somewhere physical. A phone with a flat battery at 3am is a real scenario.
2. An animal poison line
Poison services hold toxicology databases that individual practices do not, and they advise vets on treatment.
They usually charge a fee. It is worth it.
Have the number for your country saved, and ring them *and* your vet.
3. Your dog’s details, written down
- Weight, updated. Almost every emergency question starts with this
- Age and breed
- Microchip number
- Current medications and doses
- Known conditions and allergies
- Normal resting breathing rate, which you can only know if you have counted it when they were well
- Your vet’s name and practice
A card in your wallet or a note on your phone.
4. Know your dog’s normals
Abnormal only means something if you know normal. Take these when your dog is healthy.
- Temperature: 38.3 to 39.2°C (101 to 102.5°F)
- Heart rate: 60 to 140 bpm depending on size
- Resting breathing rate: count chest movements for 30 seconds while asleep and double it. Normal is roughly 10 to 30
- Gum colour: moist and pink. Press until pale; colour returns within two seconds
- Skin tent: lift the skin over the shoulders; it should snap back instantly
5. Decide the money question in advance
The hardest conversation happens when nobody is able to think clearly.
If you have insurance:
- Know what is covered and what is excluded
- Know the excess and any co-payment percentage
- Find out whether your practice does direct claims, which means you pay only the excess rather than the full amount upfront. This matters enormously in a large claim
- Have the policy number accessible
If you do not:
- Have a realistic figure in mind for what you could find
- Know whether your practice offers payment plans
- Know whether there is a charity clinic you would be eligible for
Vets would far rather have this conversation at the start than discover halfway through that the plan is unaffordable. Saying “my ceiling is around this figure, what does that make possible?” is a completely reasonable opening, and it gets you a better plan than staying silent.
6. A first aid kit, and know how to use it
Two kits — one at home, one in the car.
The items that actually get used: sterile gauze, non-adherent dressings, conforming and cohesive bandage, sterile saline pods, blunt-ended scissors, tweezers, a tick hook, gloves, styptic powder, a foil blanket, a towel, and a muzzle that fits your dog.
Condition the muzzle in advance, with food, when nothing is wrong. Pain makes any dog bite, and a dog meeting a muzzle for the first time during an emergency will fight it.
Not in the kit: human painkillers of any kind, hydrogen peroxide for wound cleaning, or human eye drops.
Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you — it helps keep this site free. We only recommend products we would use with our own dogs.
Earth Rated Dog Wipes
For cleaning around a wound so you can see it, and for your own hands afterwards. Small thing, and it is in every practical kit.
PupFlask Dog Water Bottle
In the car kit. For offering small amounts of water after an incident, and for pouring over a dog who is overheating on the way to the vet.
7. Know the handful of things to do before you go
Bleeding: firm direct pressure with gauze. Do not lift the dressing to look; add more on top.
Heatstroke: move to shade, pour cool water over the whole body continuously, create airflow, go — cooling on the way. Do not cover with wet towels and leave.
Suspected poisoning: remove the source, take the packaging, ring. Do not induce vomiting unless instructed.
Suspected bloat — unproductive retching, swollen hard abdomen, restlessness: go now, nothing by mouth.
Seizure: note the time, do not restrain, do not put anything in the mouth, move furniture away, dim the lights. Over five minutes, or repeated, means go.
Any injury: muzzle first, unless the dog is vomiting, struggling to breathe or overheating.
8. Have a plan for getting there
- Who drives, if you are alone and need to hold the dog
- A blanket in the car that can be used as a stretcher for a large dog, with two people
- A crate or a secured space, so an injured dog is not loose in the car
- A neighbour who could help at short notice
9. Take a practical first aid course
Reading about applying a pressure bandage and having done one on a wriggling Labrador are different skills.
Many organisations run one-day courses covering bandaging, CPR, choking and emergency handling. They are genuinely worth a Saturday.
10. Update the microchip
Not an emergency measure exactly, but it belongs in the same ten minutes.
Look up your dog’s chip number and confirm the phone number on the record is one you answer. Rescue centres and vets routinely scan chips registered to disconnected numbers — it is the single most common reason a found dog is not reunited with their owner.
The whole list, done once
Numbers in your phone and on the fridge. Weight and chip number written down. Insurance details accessible. A figure in mind. Two kits. A conditioned muzzle. A route to the emergency practice.
None of it is difficult. All of it is much harder to arrange at two in the morning with a dog who is collapsing.
