Veterinarians are trained, qualified and equipped for most kinds of animal emergencies and wherever possible, it would be best to take a rescued animal to a veterinarian, but when that’s not possible, this advice should help you.

[custom_script adID=149]

This paper is written to help people care for animals they may encounter here in the rural areas of Costa Rica.

It is meant to cover puppies, kittens or adult cats and dogs abandoned in the streets. I can’t cover any and all conditions those animals may have. That would entail a paper that would be turned into several volumes. So, this will cover those animals that are most likely suffering from malnutrition, possibly mange or other minor wounds or fungal or bacterial infections.

If the animal in question has obvious life threatening wounds or illness you will need to seek veterinary care. In the interim you must keep them warm and try to give some fluids orally if possible until they receive veterinary care.

For other rescues without any obvious life threatening problems, proceed as below:

Initial Animal Check-Up:

You may not be able to obtain all of the following information. But the more information you can provide to the doctor if needed or anyone else, the better prepared that person will be to render vital assistance.

  1. Take temp: do carefully use a non-toxic lubricant, rectal, (dogs — 102F, 39 C), (Cats — 101.5F, 38.5 C) Insert the thermometer very slowly and carefully and leave in place around three minutes if possible.
  2. Heart rate: Dogs: 100 (large breed), 130 sm. breed), cats: 110 — 140 Beats per min. (You can take it for 10 seconds and multiply by six)
  3. Respiration: Dogs, 22/min, Cats, 26/min (again take for 10 seconds, multiply by 6)
  4. Gums: What colour are they? Nice and rosy, red? White? Yellow? Brown? Are they moist, dry, tacky? If pale, indicates anemia, don’t forget we live in an Ehrlichiosis area and that causes anemia so the dog may need treatment for that. They should be nice pink (though some dogs have pigmented — ie — black gums) so look at the tongue.
  5. Eyes: Look at the “whites,” are they nice and white and clear? or Yellow? The conjunctiva? Is it rosy or very pale?
  6. Ear flaps: Pink? yellow? When you look into the ears do you detect an odor? (ie infection, mites, etc?)
  7. Coat and skin: Is the hair uniform, thick and shiny with healthy clean skin? Or is the hair patchy with skin lesions — ie — dry, crusted spots or skin without hair? Are sores visible?
  8. Lymph nodes: Feel under chin, neck, shoulder, “arm pits”, leg muscles. Any lumps, enlargements? Swellings?
  9. Presence of stool:? Amount? Consistency? Pasty? watery? diarrhea? Solid? bloody? Does he have to strain to go? or diarrhea?
  10. Urine? (if visible) amount? clear? cloudy? pale? dark and concentrated? has to strain to go?
  11. Vomiting:? Appearance? showing food? large chunks? (eaten recently) or only bile coming up? (meaning empty stomach).

Step 1 – Establish Age:

Quickly get a general idea if the animal is a young puppy or kitten. It will have special needs, ie nutrition, warmth. Most of us can get some idea as to whether it is a puppy or kitten, by size, appearance and teeth. If you see small, needle-like teeth, the animal is still quite young and will have special needs as far as eating several times per day and care for extra warmth. They will also have underdeveloped immune systems and contagious diseases and parasites are more of an issue. So, they need to be kept away from and protected from other animals.

They will need to be “wormed” and vaccinated once you take them to the vet for a complete check up. But never worm or vaccinate an animal that appears listless, or severely dehydrated and possibly getting sick. Remember worm medications are poisons designed to kill the parasites. Sick animals will have more problems with worm medications than healthy ones. And vaccinations can possibly bring on illnesses in a sick animal. So, worm an animal that is healthy (or if you see a little tummy that is very large and swollen, you will have no choice but to de-worm with the proper medication because they can die from impaction of parasites).

Vaccinations should be given to an animal ASAP if they appear fairly healthy. After vaccination, there is a “lag time” of roughly two weeks before the animal actually has antibodies to protect them and so remain at high risk in the interim.

Step 2 – Keep Warm:

Once you have decided on the general age of the animal, keep in mind the following:

All young animals and very depleted sick animals need extra warmth. Take care of that immediately. Put them in a safe warm and dry, secure place, they love a little secure animal carrier, even cardboard box, but preferably something you can clean or change out often. Make use of old T-shirts, or towels for bedding. If they are pretty weak, wrap them in the bedding to help retain their heat.

[custom_script adID=151]

Only an animal that is cold to the touch should be provided with artificial heat (such as a heating pad) and only until they have regained their warmth and are able to keep warm wrapped in a blanket. Overheating is easier than you may think.

Step 3 – Water & Food:

Then, concentrate on re-hydrating them with fluids, sugars, electrolytes, amino acids and vitamins and minerals. Really depleted animals need fluids first or the body will begin to shut down; equally they need those electrolytes and glucose to keep kidneys and muscles functioning. You can re-hydrate them one of two ways:

  1. An animal that refuses or is too weak to drink at all will need to be re-hydrated either in the vein with a glucose, lactated (suero) or subcutaneously which is not hard, but you do need to have a little knowledge. I am not going to take you through that step. You may need the vet for this.
  2. Orally: If the animal has enough strength to swallow, proceed with the following: Get a piece of paper and begin to keep a log on their “intake” and “outgo” because our memories are flawed. Keep a log of date, time, “intake”, recorded by “c.c.” and when they urinate or defecate, and appearance of both.

I personally find that keeping some kind of Gerber’s baby food in my cabinets really comes in handy come “dark thirty” when someone brings me a tragic case, I don’t have to race off to the store when time is critical. If you keep Gerber (or other brand) jars of applesauce (which is excellent to give an animal with diarrhea), jars of chicken and vegetables and even jars of Gerber chicken or chicken soup, if you can find it, and even a box of baby cereal, you will have almost anything you need to meet whatever animal “comes calling”.

For most pups and kitties (whatever age), it is easiest to take some of the chicken and veggies or whatever chicken product you have in the baby food and dilute it with water so that you can provide both liquid as well as badly needed sugars, electrolytes and protein. Also, keep some syringes (20 cc is a good size for animals that aren’t big) with about an inch or two of aquarium tube attached to the end you would normally attach a needle.

Begin with a dilute solution of the chicken-veggie or chicken soup mixture in water warmed to body temperature (sick animals are more likely to take fluids warmed than cold). An animal that is very dehydrated will be very weak and so fluids are most important followed by the importance of the electrolytes needed to make muscles fire, etc. The aquarium tube can be inserted into the side of the mouth just inside the cheeks and a few drops from the syringe depressed into the cavity.

Do this very carefully so as not to choke the animal. Until you are sure the animal is safely swallowing, you may want to hold them with their head at an angle below the body. Watch the throat to see they are swallowing. An accidental “gush” of fluids into the lungs will spell the death of the animal due to pneumonia or “drowning”. If you see he/she is swallowing readily, you two will develop a “rhythm” with the feeding once you have established he is swallowing properly.

If the animal appears very dehydrated (appears very skinny, loose skin, skin that doesn’t “retract” back quickly) you will want to get several feedings down them of the diluted Gerber food before you get too concerned with “meals”. Don’t feed too fast nor too much. It is best to feed small amounts often so that it doesn’t overload the system and it is better absorbed.

[custom_script adID=150]

Once the animal begins to urinate, it will signal that dehydration is on the wane. They won’t urinate until the body can part with some fluids and then the urine may be quite dark, which means it is very concentrated due to the body holding on to the fluids. Once urination is regular, you can begin to offer thicker portions of Gerber solution until you are giving it full strength (which will probably no longer be passable through the syringe).

In other words, they are most likely lapping it out of a bowl. The time between the initial feedings and when they can eat independently will vary from a few hours to several depending on the degree of severity of the animal.

Recap:

1. Warm the animal first as previously described.
2. Re-hydrate them ASAP with small but frequent feedings with the formula described above. Allow them to rest undisturbed in between each feeding to regain their strength.

I would begin with feeding small amounts each 30 minutes until you get a decent quantity down them. Small amounts will help avoid vomiting because vomiting will only cause more dehydration and weakness. Then, each two hours, then each three hours, increasing the quantity but never forcing or overloading them. During feeding, when they begin to lose interest and refuse the liquid, don’t force them. They are full.

Finally, when they seem stable but are still very young, offer 5 – 6 meals per day, decreasing the number as they mature. A nutritionally deprived adult animal needs to be treated like the babies until they get stronger and you can decrease the number of feedings as you see them progress.

Baby animals can’t hold the amount of food per feeding to meet their energy/growth needs unless fed several times per day, without becoming severely hypo-glycemic and weak.

Baby Animals Still Nursing or Needing Milk:

Providing milk to baby animals is always a challenge because like they say “nothing is like Mother’s milk” meaning it is a challenge to replace the same species milk. Mostly we have to make use of “cow’s” milk but sometimes we can use goat or soy milk if needed or available. Cow milk works in many cases but can produce diarrhea in some babies. I have given cow milk to most kittens and puppies without any problems.

There is commercial kitten milk replacement and “Esbilac” as bitch’s milk replacement, but hard to find where we live. Cats and dogs seem to tolerate cow milk well and normally only develop diarrhea due to parasites. My problems with cow milk usually involves other species of animals. Always warm milk to body temp before giving it to very young or sick ones. Begin with tiny amounts until you see how they will assimilate the milk and then increase. Problems with diarrhea can be dealt with feeding natural yoghurt that has the lactobacillus replacement.

There are many ways to combat diarrhea but to cover all possibilities gets too lengthy for this paper. For feeding milk formulas, some people like to use the little animal “nip nursers” with the bottle and nipple. My personal preference is the “tube-syringe” apparatus. Whichever you use, always note the quantity taken.

“Rescues” Ready For Their “Regular” Diet:

Once the animal is stable and ready for complete nutrition, choose the diet intended for the species. ie – dog food for dogs, cat food for cats. For puppies that are young with baby teeth or tiny breed pups with small mouths: They will need soft mushy food that their teeth can handle. Either feed them dry puppy chow mashed up and soaked in warm milk until it is a pasty consistency they can make use of, or canned dog food soaked in warm milk they can easily ingest.

The latter sometimes works out better for animals that have little appetite or are slow to begin eating because it has more flavour. For kittens, it is rare to find “kitten chow” to meet the needs of growing cats here, so use dry cat chow soaked in milk (Cats must be fed cat food because of the addition of the amino acid, Taurine, necessary for cats) with a few tablespoons of some type of canned cat food and make sure it is a consistency they can manage. As the animal grows and matures, try to meet all the general nutritional requirements for their species with vitamins and minerals as well.

Other Health Considerations:

Commonly with abandoned strays, as their bodies become more depleted due to malnutrition, they suffer first; hunger, weakness, malnutrition and eventually a depressed immune system from the stress of abandonment. With a depressed immune system follows parasites, mange, and infectious diseases that healthy animals are protected from. Their main problem is compromised nutrition. The best thing you can do for these animals to enhance their immune system when they are old enough for solid foods, is to begin feeding a high protein diet.

Feed their regular species specific food plus add some tablespoons of tuna (for humans) packed in oil. It is this combination of tuna in oil that will supply vital essential Omega fatty acids so essential for health of the skin and hair.

If it appears the animal is suffering from the beginning of mange or even a serious case of mange, the tuna in oil is essential to help reverse the condition. This type of diet also helps prevent mange. However with a true case of mange, it is easily cured with the diet of their daily food with extra tuna in oil and they will also need an oral medication of Ivermectin to kill the mange mites. I have a special paper written on the treatment of mange. It is an easy cure but requires a 2 month commitment for the daily oral treatment.

[custom_script adID=97]


[custom_script adID=153]

Written by Gloria Dempsey. Zoologist in Arenal, Costa Rica. April 2009

If you would to contribute to the rescue and care of wildlife in Costa Rica and maybe help with the cost of a new portable X-ray machine, please send a US cashier’s cheque to our Zoologist friend in Arenal Gloria Dempsey:

Gloria Dempsey
5717-28 Nuevo Arenal – Tilaran
Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

Or you can email Gloria Dempsey at zoologist@welovecostarica.com


Are you into beautiful Costa Rica?

All interesting things you want to know about Costa Rica are right here in our newsletter! Enter your email and press "subscribe" button.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *