Surgery and dentistry are performed at Chalet Veterinary Clinic routinely Monday through Friday. (Declaw surgeries are not performed on Fridays due to the recommended extended hospital stay.)
Please call our receptionist ( 608-873-8112 ) during business hours to schedule your pet's surgery.
Most often we will be able to schedule routine surgery or dental appointments within 1-2 weeks of your contact. Non-elective surgeries are scheduled at the discretion of the attending doctor. Every effort will be made to schedule your pet's surgery as quickly as possible.
Payment for both elective and non-elective surgeries is expected at the time you pick up your pet.
Surgery and dental patients should be fasted the night prior to their procedure. Give no food after 8:00 pm the night before surgery or a dental. Your pet may have water until the time it comes into the hospital.
Drop off your pet the morning of its scheduled procedure between 7:00 am and 8:30 am. Be prepared to sign a consent form and confirm what procedures are being done that day. Be sure to leave a phone number at which the doctor can reach you for that day. (You may download the consent form from this website if you would like to fill it out prior to drop-off.)
Please inform the receptionist if there are any additional procedures you would like to have done for your pet, such as vaccinations, microchipping, etc.
If your pet is on medication prescribed by the doctor you should give the medication prior to dropping your pet off for surgery – UNLESS YOUR PET IS DIABETIC. Please inform the receptionist if medication has been given prior to drop off.
FOR DIABETICS – do not give insulin prior to their visit. You may bring your pet's insulin with and depending on your pet's blood sugar level we may administer it after the procedure is over. We always do procedures on diabetics as early in the day as possible.
Monitor your pet's incision daily for excessive redness, swelling, bleeding, or discharge.
Give all pain and other prescribed medications as directed. If you have any questions or concerns regarding your pet's medication, please call us.
Prevent your pet from licking at the incision. This will NOT keep it clean. It will make it more likely for the incision to become infected or have problems with healing. If necessary you may bandage the incision, apply a t-shirt over the incision if it is on the pet's torso, apply bitter substances like Chew-Check or Bitter Apple around the area to prevent the pet from licking. In some cases you may need to use an Elizabethan collar to prevent your pet from bothering his incision.
Do not allow your pet to run loose for 5-7 days after surgery. This may damage the incision or cause a seroma (pocket of fluid and blood) to form under the incision.
Prevent cats that have been declawed from jumping down from furniture if at all possible for 5-7 days. The more active your cat is the more likely it is to be painful for a longer time after surgery. Be sure to give your declawed cat his pain medication.
Do not use clay or scoopable litter after declaw surgery. Use compressed newspaper litter following declaws for about 5-7 days. Some cats may also do well with oatmeal as litter following declaw surgery.
Check your discharge instructions to see when your pet should come in for suture or staple removal. Call in advance of bringing your pet in to schedule its suture removal. There is no charge for suture removal if surgery has been performed at Chalet Veterinary Clinic.
Do not hesitate to call us if you have any questions following your pet's surgery or dental procedures.
Only you can answer this question. If you have small children, other pets, or elderly people living in your home it may be a good idea to help prevent them from being accidentally injured by your cat. Some rental agencies require that your cat be declawed before renting to you. We believe that if done with appropriate technique, appropriate pain medication, and at the optimum time cats handle declaw surgery well with few post-operative problems.
We can safely declaw kittens as early as 10-12 weeks of age. From our experience younger kittens recover from the surgery very quickly. Many people wait to do the declaw surgery until it is time to spay or neuter their kitten. This is a fine time also. Declaw surgery in cats older than 2-3 years is more difficult and there is more discomfort for the pet, but we can do it in cases where it is necessary for the quality of life of the pet and its owner.
We recommend having your cat stay in the hospital for 2 nights after declaw surgery. This allows him or her to have two full days of cage rest following surgery, which in our opinion helps the healing process and prevents post-operative complications like bleeding, swelling, or pain.
We recommend that spay/neuter surgery be performed around 5-6 months of age. Although many humane societies and rescue organizations are performing early age neuters, we believe that there are health benefits in allowing your pet to mature more prior to being neutered or spayed.
No! Unless there are very specific health reasons that would keep your pet from tolerating anesthesia or surgery, there is no upper age restriction to doing these surgeries. In many cases, such as breast tumors, prostate disease, or uterine infections, these surgeries are life saving. We strongly recommend having non-breeding pets altered in order to prevent these serious and common health problems.
In cases of abdominal surgery we do recommend an overnight stay. It gives your pet a chance to recuperate quietly in a safe place following an invasive surgery. Most pets just want to sleep after abdominal surgery anyway, with the benefit of post-operative pain medication. This also allows the doctor and technician to evaluate your pet in the morning prior to going home. Routine neuters, dentals, and most lump removals are fine to go home the same night.
No. Because we do not operate as a 24-hour intensive care hospital there is no doctor or technician on the premises at night routinely. Accordingly we charge less for an overnight stay than an intensive care hospital as well. If we feel your pet is in an unstable condition or needs nursing care overnight we will make arrangements with you to transfer your pet to an intensive care hospital. This is rarely necessary after a routine surgical procedure.
Presurgical bloodwork is typically a blood panel that is drawn to screen your pet for unpredicted health problems that might complicate anesthesia. We routinely check liver and kidney enzyme levels, blood sugar, and protein levels. In some cases, we may recommend additional work that may be particular to your pet's medical history or surgical needs.
We strongly recommend post-operative pain medication for your pet after surgery and some dental procedures. We tailor our post-operative pain strategies to be specific for the procedure that was performed. If authorized, an injection will be given to your pet as it is waking up from anesthesia and oral medication will be dispensed to follow up at home.
In the last 20 years improvements in dental health have made a tremendous impact on the longevity and quality of life of our pets. Regular dental cleaning helps to prevent heart disease, bronchitis, liver and kidney infections. But the thing most pet owners appreciate more than anything else is that their pet's breath smells BETTER!
A professional dental cleaning done once or twice per year after your pet reaches 2-3 years of age makes a definite positive impact on your pet's quality of life.
We will anesthetize your pet in order to effectively clean all surfaces of the teeth. We use an ultrasonic dental scaler to do the cleaning which causes little discomfort to the mouth. Once the teeth are cleaned we evaluate the teeth in order to determine whether any extractions should be performed. If no extractions are necessary, we will then polish the teeth. At the start of dental cleaning we administer an antibiotic if your pet is not currently taking antibiotics. We do not give pain injections after a dental unless there have been extractions performed.
We recommend extracting teeth for any of the following reasons: broken teeth which expose the tooth pulp; severe periodontal disease where the tooth and its root are diseased; cavities in dogs or resorptive lesions in cats; tooth root abscesses; misplaced adult teeth or retained baby teeth. We do recommend pain medication following dental extractions.
You may use a combination of techniques at home to help keep your pet's teeth clean: brushing, using cleaning gels and rinses, treats that are designed to help keep the teeth clean, and sometimes special foods designed to help prevent tartar formation. We even have a vaccine available to help prevent periodontal disease in dogs! Talk to us about what the best regimen is for your pet!
