"Cover Your K-9" Regional Emergency Medicine Course
Law enforcement patrol and detection dogs are
routinely exposed to hazardous situations in the course of carrying out their
duties and protecting the community. To
help keep them safe, we offer “Cover Your K-9” Regional Emergency Medicine
Course to enable K-9 officers to learn advanced first aid and emergency care
skills to assist their police dogs
in the event of an emergency.
This is an intensive all day course that
includes lectures on the maintenance and preventive care for working dogs,
emergency care for patrol and detection dogs and trauma management.
For the first course in May of
2010, a volunteer veterinary team of 3 doctors and 10 veterinary technicians
was led by
Dr. Robert Lukas of the Sage Centers for
Veterinary Specialty and
Emergency Care.
Assisting with the
course were 9 members of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue K-9
team along with the “Cover Your K-9”, K-9 Ambassador and Pet Food Express
volunteer teams. During the ‘hands on’
segment of the course furry dog mannequins called ‘resusi-dogs’ were used to
teach K-9 CPR to the teams. Special
volunteer ‘demo dogs’ patiently allowed their legs to be wrapped to help
the
officers learn splinting and bandaging skills.
It was a wonderful day of learning that will be crucial in helping our
K-9 officers care for their hard-working dogs every day
as well as in emergency
situations.
The CYK Trauma Kits have been
designed with the help of the veterinary specialists at Sage Centers for
Specialty and Emergency Care and include many items not found in commercially
available kits, including a
special K-9 oxygen mask.
The custom kits are provided to each K-9
officer to carry in their patrol cars to enable them to provide first aid care
to their police dog in case of an emergency.
Our Emergency Medicine Course and
the custom
“Cover Your K-9” Trauma Kits
are provided to law enforcement departments at no
charge.
