Hickory Veterinary and Specialty Hospital is dedicated to providing your pet with advanced surgical procedures such as soft tissue, orthopedic, and neurosurgery. The surgical team strives to provide a compassionate, team-oriented approach to caring for our patients. Intense monitoring and care during their surgical procedure and recovery is important for a smooth surgical procedure and is an absolute must for our patients. We provide your pet with the most up-to-date equipment for monitoring, the procedure and recovery.
We will work closely with your veterinarian to ensure that you and your pet receive the best possible care, effective treatment and follow-up.
What should I expect when I come to Hickory for Surgery?
Before My Pet's Surgery
Here at Hickory, we require our patients to have a pre-surgical consult with our surgical team. If you are already a patient of our primary care or are being referred for surgery, our surgical team will want to do an exam and find out more about what is going on. It is likely that they will want to do blood work ahead of time to make sure that your pet has all the care they will need while under anesthesia. Prior to surgery, they may also perform xrays. You will speak with the doctor and schedule the surgery at that time.
We ask that the night before your pets surgery you do not feed them 12 hours prior, water, however, may be left available. We ask that you drop off between 7:00am and 7:30am in order for us to prep them for the procedure. Please ask us if regular medications can be given the day of as the answer will change with different medications. We may request to keep your medication(s) and some of your prescription/special food you feed because it is likely your pet will be staying with us, for recovery, afterwards.
The morning of drop off, inform the technician of any changes that may have happened between the pre-surgical consult and their drop off and of any special instructions you may have (nail trim, ear clean, etc). Be prepared to leave a deposit ahead of time. The rest of the payment will be collected after the procedure.
Post-Surgery Care
Aftercare is very important when your pet has surgery. When you first take them home they will likely be tired after their stay with us. This should improve each day. The doctor or technician will go over with you how to properly care for your pet at home. We will go over follow up instructions and medications. It is usually a good idea to have a confined area for your pet at home that will allow them to rest and not move around too much. Your pet will likely be sent home with an Elizabethan collar (aka cone of shame). This is very important in the healing process and keeps our patients from touching their incisions. If you have one at home, let us know. If you have concerns about using a cone please ask about other options prior to your discharge so you can plan on purchasing other product options we may not carry.