What should be in a pet first aid kit?

The purpose of a pet first aid kit is narrow: control bleeding, protect a wound, keep the animal warm and contained, and get it to a vet. Everything beyond that is a decision for a veterinary surgeon, and a kit stuffed with remedies is more likely to cause a delay than to help.

Safety

What you'll need

• Sterile non-adherent dressings, several sizes
• Conforming bandage and self-adhesive cohesive bandage
• Surgical tape
• Blunt-ended scissors
• Disposable gloves
• Sterile saline pods for flushing eyes and wounds
• Tick removal hook
• Foil emergency blanket
• Torch
• Spare slip lead
• Correctly sized basket muzzle, for a dog (optional)
• Thick towel or pillowcase, for handling a cat
• Tweezers (optional)
• Digital thermometer, if you have been shown how to use it (optional)
• Written vet and out-of-hours numbers, and your policy number

Step by step

1. Write the numbers down and put them in the kit.Your practice, the out-of-hours provider that covers it, your insurance policy number and the microchip number. Phones run out of battery and websites are slow to search at three in the morning.
2. Build the wound-control core.Sterile non-adherent dressings in a few sizes, conforming bandage, cohesive self-adhesive bandage and tape. That combination covers the majority of what first aid can usefully do.
3. Include saline pods.For flushing an eye or a dirty wound. Sterile saline is safe on both; tap water is a poor substitute for an eye and antiseptics intended for humans can damage the surface of an eye badly.
4. Add a tick hook, not tweezers.A hook twists the whole tick out. Pulling with tweezers, or applying anything to make a tick let go, increases the risk of leaving mouthparts behind and of the tick regurgitating. Removing ticks promptly matters for Lyme disease risk to people as well.
5. Include restraint you can actually use.A spare slip lead, and for a dog a correctly sized basket muzzle that it has been habituated to in advance. Injured animals bite people they love, and a muzzle introduced calmly beforehand is far more use than one produced for the first time in a crisis.
6. Add a thick towel for a cat.Wrapping an injured cat firmly in a towel is the standard way to move it without being scratched and without worsening an injury. A pillowcase works for the same purpose.
7. Include a foil blanket.Shock and blood loss cause heat loss, and keeping an injured animal warm on the way to the vet is genuinely useful.
8. Leave the medicines out.No human painkillers — paracetamol and ibuprofen are toxic and paracetamol is often fatal to cats. No human antiseptic creams. No leftover prescription medicines from a previous animal or a previous condition. Do not attempt to induce vomiting except on veterinary instruction.
9. Know the three things worth learning properly.Applying a pressure bandage to control bleeding, safely restraining and moving an injured animal, and how to cool an overheated dog. A short practical canine first aid course covers all three and is worth more than any equipment.
10. Keep a second kit in the car.Most incidents happen away from home, on walks and in transit. Duplicate the core and keep it where the dog travels.
11. Check it twice a year.Saline and dressings have expiry dates, batteries fail, and things get borrowed. Tie it to the clock change so it actually happens.

Questions people ask