Knife wounds

Video 21 of 55
2 min 27 sec
English
English
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Now, I acknowledge that knife wounds will hopefully not be something that happens a lot to your dog, but there are some dogs where this is quite a risk. So dogs like police dogs where they are, or any service dog, where they are out there with the public and especially in dangerous situations. You may find a dog with a knife wound and you would hope if it was a police dog that the handler would be with the dog, but this may be something that anybody might need to help with. If you see a knife wound, like with any foreign objects inside a dog, the temptation is to remove it. Please do not do that. This knife, we do not know how long it is, we do not know exactly what organs it may be penetrating. And it could be that by actually removing it, we are doing more damage to the organs. So please leave it exactly where it is, trying to immobilise it as best as you can. And that may be by providing some sort of dressing around here if it is safe to do so to keep it placed and prevent it from dislodging. Or it could be by doing nothing. You have to assess the situation slightly differently in whichever situation you are in and whatever you have got available to you.

Try and immobilise the dog. Do not let it carry on walking, do not let it jump up if you possibly can help it, and get them seen at the vet as soon as you possibly can. With a knife injury, you may just be presented with a single injury with the knife still in it. But if you are in that situation where there is a knife injury, you need to be aware of what else is going on. Are there any other knives? Who has done this in the first place? It may be that the knife is not actually in the dog anymore. There may be several stab wounds, so it could be that you are managing a wound or other wounds as well as the injury with the knife still in it.

If you do see that the dog was being stabbed and the knife has come out, the temptation is to then remove that knife and get it out of the way. And that may be the safest thing to do if it's still an active situation going on. But if it's a police incident, you want to make sure you are leaving that knife well alone because there will be fingerprints and evidence on that knife that you do not want to be tampering with. If you do see a dog with this kind of knife injury and you are worried about the area do not rush to the dog, make sure that you are safe as well. You need to assess a situation and see if there is any potential for danger in that area still.