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Pet CPR - Care, Prepare, Respond, or How Not to Panic 01-07-2026

January 07, 2026 • Rachann Mayer • Season 9 • Episode 1

0:00 | 22:15

Today Rachann talks about how pet owners could benefit from knowing the basics of CRP and First Aid and how to become Pet Tech CPR Certified. She breaks down what to do in common emergencies and how to stay calm when seconds matter. This episode covers simple steps, hands-on skills, and real situations you can learn from.

Our goal is to help you feel prepared, confident, and ready to protect the pets you love.

Rachann's next Pet CPR class is scheduled for January 19 at 8 am. Sign up at Pet-emt.com using code RCP2026.

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Audio file

RCP Podcast Pet CPR & First Aid Total 01-07-2026.mp3

Transcript

Join Pet EMT on January 19th for a pet CPR class.

Come and learn how to help your furry friend in an emergency.

After all, you are your pet's first responder.

Empower yourself to save and help furry friends when time is short.

In an emergency, you need to know what to do.

Pet EMT pet CPR classes will give you the confidence and the knowledge to act when time is short and tensions are high.

Today's podcast is brought to you by Mariah Belle Manor Kennel, offering dog boarding, bathing, and daycare in an eco-friendly environment.

Our pet care with a personal touch is not just a motto, it's really what we do.

Our touch extends to the food without preservatives, quality and natural shampoos, inclusive boarding, and a green living environment.

Sounds like I might want to check in.

Visit us anytime on our Facebook page, Mariah Belle Manor Kennel, or mariahbellemanorkennel.com.

Enjoy your program.

Welcome to Raising Connections, connecting your community to others through Critters, Companions, Commerce, and Agriculture.

I'm Ray Shan Mayer.

Let's raise some connections.

This morning, the connections between your pets and your life and what skills you know to help your pets is paramount.

After all, accidents are never planned for.

PetTech offers hands-on training for pet CPR and first aid.

Why is this important for our listeners?

Why is it important to me?

And why is it important to PetTech?

Let's have that conversation.

I always enjoy the chats that we have, this intelligent yet casual conversation about so many topics revolving around our Critters, Companions, Commerce, and Agriculture.

For 11 years now, I have enjoyed having conversations about these topics with you, and you as listeners have responded at hello at raisingconnections.com, and I appreciate that.

The pet CPR and first aid is near and dear to my heart.

Mariah Bell Manor Kennel is a kennel that we opened, reopened if you will, when we purchased a new place here in Mount Airy.

We'd been residents here.

We came to the Mount Airy area because it reminded us a lot of home where my home was and trying to find that connection in a small community and become part of that small community.

The way I had learned how to do that in my small community back in Indiana was important.

So when we purchased a new home and it was a fixer upper, it was built in

1772 and had been a kennel since the early 1950s.

Well, we closed it because after all, I was working in my cell biology and organ model development career and I didn't think that a kennel would work and it's the mothers.

The mothers always get you in the end.

My mother says, but you started off in school and you really wanted to be a veterinary and you happened to end up in medical people science as opposed to medical animal science.

You're going to close the dog kennel where you have the opportunity to talk with people about pets all day long?

And of course, I said, well, yes, mom, I'm going to do that.

The younger the wiser, right?

About 2 years later, we reopened the kennel and we were the first green kennel in the state, the 4th one in the nation.

And at this point, the only one of the

first four still under the same management and same owner, which I think is pretty impressive.

Talking about pets, talking about what you do, how you do it, and loving all those pups that come through.

And we say hello and goodbye to a lot of really awesome dogs.

One of the things that I find so important, and I hope that you find important, is knowing what to do in an emergency situation.

Things have changed over the years, and much like human CPR and first aid,

procedures change.

The more we know, the better we get.

And how do we actually apply this and what happens?

Let's talk about that.

When we first opened the kennel, one of the things I felt very strongly about, because I had ridden on the EMT, the emergency medical technician, for the human side in my younger years, it was very important to me that both myself and our staff knew pet CPR and first aid because you never know what's going to happen.

You hope for the best and you plan for

was the old taglet I learned many, many years ago.

One of the first things I did was I went to the Red Cross, which many of us think, okay, that's where you get pet CPR and first aid training.

When you get there, I learned to become an instructor, and we had dog models that we would practice on, and we would teach different pieces of CPR, and then something happened.

The Red Cross had to make a huge decision and it broke many, many hearts because so many weather events, a lot of us remember Katrina and Ida and some of those really horrifying storms, they had to make a decision and technology came along and helped make this decision.

The reason I chose Pet Tech is because it is a hands-on program.

So when we had first opened the kennel, let me pull this together, a nice little bow.

When we first opened the kennel, I found it very important to have pet CPR and first aid.

So I went to learn how to be an instructor and receive the training so I could help train our staff at the kennel.

Because if people are going to be leaving their pets with us and they're going to be trusting us with the care of those pets, it's important that we knew how to care for them to the best of our abilities.

And for me, that included pet CPR and first aid.

What happened subsequently, we talked about why the training I had received through the Red Cross was no longer, I thought the hands-on piece was really important and it needed to be there.

I went to Oklahoma City for intensive training on how to become a pet tech instructor able to teach first aid and pet CPR to all the folks at the kennel as well as around here in our community because that community piece is really important to us.

What I learned and what I want to share with you, I found fascinating.

Did you know that there are Good Samaritan laws to protect people when they do Good Samaritan acts?

There's some interesting information going about what happens to people when they try to do a Good Samaritan act for a dog or a pet in distress.

Most people who see a dog get hit in the road, for example.

It happens, unfortunately, but it happens.

time of an unplanned emergency and there's action.

And if you are able to help that pet, the first thing you need to do, obviously, is make sure that it is safe for a person to be in that situation to help that pet, and then provide the help that you are able to provide.

Announce who you are, announce what's going on, and get that pet some first aid to help their survival rate, if possible, or their comfort level as the event goes on.

Those good Samaritan laws and where your heart is when you see that event need to catch up with each other and I'm pretty confident that they will.

One of the things because of that information really made me think about how I wanted to train.

Here's something I want everybody to think about.

Many of the training facilities who offer pet CPR are offering that training online.

Nothing wrong with that training.

It's good training.

For me, I wanted to have hands-on because if I were to be in that emergency situation, or if our staff at Mariah Bell Manor Kennel, or if someone walking out in the community found a pet CPR, first aid, such as that dog being hit in the road, I did not want the first time that my hands were put on a dog to administer pet CPR or first aid

to be the first time I had done it since my online training.

It's a very hands-on, it's a very touch-feel, it's a very real concept.

The adrenaline, the scare.

The first time that you do CPR, it is kind of scary.

And to have that training, to have those responses, to have the training provided by former police officers and medical technicians, where you can find their interviews in the files of Raising Connections on raisingconnections.com, to have those first responders teach

that training in a way that was so familiar to me in that role play where the adrenaline comes up, the panic of the person providing the CPR happens, and then you're ready for your first hands-on, real situation was really important to me.

Knowing what the compressions feel like, knowing what to do, knowing how loud to be,

Knowing and touching and feeling where to put the tongue, where to put the hands, what to do, what it's going to feel like, how much pressure, how much not pressure, really, really important hands-on.

For me, I think I've made my point here, but for me, the hands-on is really important, and that adrenaline control for the person providing the CPR and first aid is really important.

In addition to that, there's a program that goes on, it's called RECOVER.

It's the acronym, it's R-E-C-O-V-E-R, just like it says.

And Pet Tech is highly involved with this program.

What RECOVER is, is a program that talks about when we make a CPR or first aid choice, primarily CPR, what's the outcome of that?

Are we successful?

Are the methods that we're using successful?

Are we doing what we intend to do successfully?

And can we be more successful if we collect data and we know more?

The acronym RECOVER is Reassessment Campaign on Veterinary Resuscitation.

Here's the catch.

And what Pet Tech did was they said, if we are going to offer good quality, hands-on pet CPR training, we also need to talk with the veterinarians.

We need to work with them so that we are all working towards the same goal.

Because if you're in a veterinary setting, you have a lot of different tools

available than if you're out on a hike or you're walking and you see a dog get hit.

That's a first aid situation, that's a CPR situation, that's not a resuscitation within a medical setting.

And so Pet Tech and Recover got together and the debriefing after someone who was trained through Pet Tech.

That debriefing then goes back into RECOVER program, which works with the veterinaries to make sure the training that we're offering and the procedures that we're doing and teaching are truly what needs to be out there for the benefit of our pets.

When we come back, let's talk a little bit more about what this is, how you do it, and if you want to learn more, where to get that information.

Welcome back to Raising Connections.

This morning we're talking pet CPR and first aid.

Most of us, if we're walking along and we see a dog that has had an accident, because after all, none of us planned for those, our hearts go out and we want to do some help.

What kind of help can we do and are we prepared to offer the best help that we can?

That's why I went to Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, to receive pet tech instructor training for the record-breaking number of people trained in pet CPR and first aid.

And if you really stop and think about this,

Would you leave your pet somewhere they're not trained for pet CPR and first aid?

Lots of things to think about.

One of the things that I will get into...

is what is it and how we train it and who and why and all of that kind of good stuff.

But in the state of Maryland, actually a bit progressive here, there have now been laws, in the first section we're talking about Good Samaritan laws, there are now laws in front of the legislature and they're moving through, and we'll keep our eye on those, that are saying our first responders can actually legally treat animals.

Can you imagine being a first responder in a house fire?

there's a family pet, what happens?

We've all seen those movies where, oh my gosh, don't forget the dog.

The Kennel Club here in Carroll County, Maryland, actually does wonderful things.

I'm so proud to be involved with them.

One of the things that they do is from the funds they raise through the year, they actually buy oxygen masks for dogs and supply them to the firehouses in our local area.

So that way, when there is an emergency, the pets have some equipment in this

fire trucks to help with what's going on.

What a great community we have around us.

We have folks in the kennel club who work with sporting dogs, show dogs, have their dogs at all kinds of events.

There's lots of information for the Carroll Kennel Club online.

But they also take the time to care for all of our pets and our community by supplying those O2 masks because it's not just their dog they're looking out for.

It's everybody's dog they're watching for.

When those first responders come to an event,

and they have a situation where pets are involved, their first priority, as always, are the people.

And that is their training and that is their position to do.

First responders can then, in the state of Maryland, if all the legal pieces come correctly together, make strong advances towards the pets.

And that's where pet CPR and first aid and responding, knowing how to do that CPR for pets.

And is there a difference between the five-pound Chihuahua and the 110-pound Newfoundland?

there a difference between the cat versus the Labrador retriever?

There's a lot to learn there.

There's a lot in method.

There's a lot in compression.

There's a lot in beats per minute.

Lots of things to learn when you attend a pet CPR training.

People come in different shapes and sizes.

The founder of Pet Tech,

I'd been a medical professional and had been in the training world for dogs and was actually teaching human CPR.

Tom Somms is his name.

Was actually training people CPR.

And one of the students in that class came forward and asked, can I use this on my dog?

And that was the aha moment.

We have to make a place where people can get this information.

And that's where Pet Tech came from.

With the changes in our world and

All of these pieces going on, it's really important.

One, we're reporting back.

Two, we're doing things properly.

And three, there's only three situations you're going to come across.

First situation that you're going to come across is that a pet has a heartbeat and they're breathing.

This is a good thing.

But why is the pet non-responsive?

What's going on?

This is a first aid situation.

Is this frostbite, is it hypothermia, is it bleeding, is it pain, is it shock, is it broken bones?

What's going on here?

And that's where the first aid piece comes in, doing the assessment safely for you and with this minimal risk to the already injured pet, because injured pets respond differently than a non-injured pet.

The second situation you'll come across is CPR, where there is cardiopulmonary breathing required.

What that means is

You don't know if they have a heartbeat, but they are not breathing, and you need to be able to assist that situation, make changes that will be meaningful to that pet.

The third situation is rescue breathing.

So this is when the pet cannot breathe for some reason.

Could that be electrocution?

Could it be that they've ingested drugs?

Is it a poisoning situation?

Why do you need to help that pet breathe?

Here's something to think about.

On the pet tip, we talked about smells and scents and how dogs can stay on scent and do tracking work and how that's an event for the American Kennel Club.

Tracking is a brain activity.

Well, those nose designs that allows those dogs to stay on scent, we talked about how the nose is made.

And if you listen to that tip, what you'll find is

That the nose, the holes, the nostrils, if you will, take air in, but air is expelled through the nares on the side, so it's coming in one opening and going out the other.

How do you provide CPR in that situation?

In a human, air goes in and out of a mouth, air goes in and out of a nose.

But in a dog, it's really complex design right there in that nose.

How do you give CPR to something like that?

What about a cat or a brachial-faced dog, those little pugs?

How do you do something like that?

Hmm, lots of things to think about.

So three situations you're going to run across, a first aid situation, a cardiopulmonary resuscitation situation, CPR, or a rescue breathing situation where you need to provide rescue breaths.

Lots of things to think about, and that's where the training comes into play.

Our next Pet CPR class is January 19th, starting at 8 A.m.

The Pet Saver is an eight-hour class, and what that class will teach you, it's a heck of a time commitment, but you leave with a wonderful amount of knowledge and the muscle memory in your hands that is so important.

It's not that your brain knows what to do, but that your brain and your hands have worked together to establish patterns that can come back

It's an eight-hour class, and we'll be talking about three types of CPR, restraint and muzzling, because if you are out and a dog has been in a car accident, or you come upon a car accident, or there's a poisoning, a bite, snake bites maybe, they've gotten into something, you find that disaster, the first thing that you need to do is make sure that situation is safe for everybody, and one of those safety items is to muzzle

And how do you do that, especially if you're going to give rescue breaths?

There's a lot to think about and learn here.

Lots of things to think about.

So restraint and muzzling, rescue breathing, choking management, shock management, bleeding protocols.

What happens if it's a snake bite?

Insect bites, stings.

Dogs can be allergic and have reactions just like people can.

Pet first aid contents, what do you want to have with you?

If you need to make that muzzle, what do you need to have around in order to do it?

Lots of thoughts there.

And there's actually some very common things around to use muzzles with.

We'll cover that in the class because it's first aid and CPR, which makes this a little different than what would happen in a veterinary's office.

What happens in a veterinary's office is incredibly important and incredibly valuable.

What happens when you're walking around outside and you see a dog who's been swimming and all of a sudden gets exhausted is very different.

That dog comes up to shores, it gets up

out there, the person who's doing the swimming may not be the person who could administer CPR and first aid.

So you're working with field, if you will.

What's in your field, what's in your hands at that point?

What are your priorities of your pet care assessment?

How are you going to do it?

What are you going to start first?

In an emergency situation, having a pattern that you've learned with your hands, put into your mind, put into action, have that adrenaline response, and you can execute on is incredibly important because seconds matter.

With humans, we have 911 to call.

With those pets, we don't have 911 to call.

We are the first responder.

You are the one who's going to make a difference for that pet and that pet owner or that pet that is yours.

We teach a snout-to-tail assessment and injury assessment.

Snout-to-tail assessment, did you know that oftentimes when pets are being groomed,

That is when different body issues come out.

That snout to tail assessment means you start at the snout, obviously, and you assess to the tail before you start any sort of pet CPR.

As pet owners, we tend to pet the areas that the dog or the cat prefers.

How often do you actually go head to tail, looking at teeth, inside ears, in the bottoms of paws, looking in between the pads, going through the tail, looking at the genitals on the backside?

probably some of us more than others, depending on where your dog needs to be petted, where your cat likes to be petted.

But having that ability to do that in a systematic manner to find out is the sting here, is the bite there, is this broken, is that not broken, is it shock?

What's going on?

Heat and cold injuries.

Pet vitals are incredibly different than human vitals.

Temperatures are different.

different, breathing rates different, good stuff to know.

Depending on the size of your dog, the care for a senior pet is a little bit different, as is some of the basics.

When you have a small dog, about nine is where a geriatric comes in, or older stages of life.

As the larger the dog, the younger that gets.

Unfortunately, the larger dogs don't tend to live statistically as long as the smaller dogs.

What is the care for an older dog like?

What do you do if there's an emergency situation with an older dog?

Good stuff to know.

Dental care, really important.

And that's part of the Pet Saver training, that eight-hour course.

Pet and first aid, there is a five-hour course that can be taken that gives you just the basics.

Really, really important stuff and I can't stress how much the structure of those noses and understanding the basics of pet CPR for rescue breathing and reporting back to the recover program so that we know are we doing the right things for those dogs in the right time frame.

Are you ready to learn pet CPR?

Come take a class with us at Pet EMT.

Sign up using code RCP2026 Raising Connections Program.

2026 at our website, PetEMT.com, and join us for our class.

Our next PetCPR class is January 19th, starting at 8 a.m.

Sign up and come learn with us.

I hope the connections we've raised today stay with you as you engage your community through critters, companions, commerce, and agriculture.

Join me again next week.

We'll make some more connections.

This program is a production of Raising Connections Media Company, hosted and produced by Roshan Mayer and edited and mixed by Robin Temple.