What If My Vet Requires My Dog Stay Overnight?
There are many reasons a vet or emergency vet might require your dog remain in the hospital one or more nights. Some of these reasons include:
I allowed my Cocker Spaniel, Dexter, to remain at a veterinary hospital for four nights because a veterinarian or vet tech was available on-site. My dog required IV medication and blood draws after being diagnosed with immune-mediated thrombocytopenia (IMT).
I rushed Dexter to the emergency room at an area veterinary hospital when his gums turned pale and bled. He was immediately triaged, and blood work revealed he had zero platelets. His body was destroying the platelets, and he required hospital care I could not provide at home. I also took comfort in knowing someone was watching him overnight and would call me if anything of concern happened.
If your dog requires an overnight stay at a veterinary facility, make sure someone will be present with the animals around the clock. I would not allow my dog to stay at a veterinary facility for any reason if someone wasn’t present to monitor his condition and watch over him.
If your vet feels your dog requires overnight care in their facility, ask about 24-hour supervision. Vets who insist on keeping your dog overnight obviously feel there is something they can do in-house that you can’t do at home.
I would highly recommend having your dog transferred to a hospital you trust that has 24-hour monitoring and care of their patients, much like a human hospital. My first Cocker Spaniel had a traumatic bleeding experience when I left her overnight at a veterinary clinic after eye surgery.
It’s all a question of clinical judgement.
Your vet will use their clinical judgement and experience to decide how much monitoring your pet needs overnight. The level of overnight supervision required for a hospitalised pet will be determined by your vet. A vet will look at factors like the severity of illness, how stable the patient is and how intensive the treatment required is. They then decide if the pet can go home, stay at the clinic or be referred to another practice with the necessary facilities and expertise for the very unstable and sick patients. There are some categories of patients that need continuous monitoring, such as those in a diabetic coma, with respiratory distress or unstable epileptics for whom overnight care in a 24 -hour hospital is the only option.
Then there are those patients who are stable but still need to stay in hospital for treatment, such as intravenous fluids or post-operative pain relief. These pets don’t need continuous monitoring and can safely be kept overnight without constant checks. However, there is a risk of reduced care quality if, for example, the drip line stops and is not picked up until the following day.
As more and more first opinion practices rely on dedicated out of hours providers to provide emergency care for their patients, the transfer of hospitalised patients to those providers overnight is necessary before being brought back the next morning. Sometimes this round trip needs to be done for several consecutive days. Occasionally the clinic will arrange this, but it is often the owner’s responsibility to arrange transport.
Questions To Ask About Your Dog’s Overnight Vet Stay
Before you leave your dog at the veterinary facility overnight, be sure to ask these questions:
If your pooch is having surgery, here are questions to ask before your dog’s surgery.