Lisa Krieger will teach a Canine First Aid course in Medicine Hat on Aug. 28. (Photo Courtesy Lisa Krieger)

By Chris Brown

Aug. 28

Learn to handle minor emergencies at canine first aid course

Aug 5, 2022 | 11:51 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – An Alberta canine first aid trainer wants to lessen the strain on an overwhelmed and overburdened veterinary system in Medicine Hat.

Lisa Krieger of Southern Alberta K9 First Aid will be in our city on Aug. 28. She’ll teach a course she says will give people the tools and confidence to handle some of the smaller dog emergencies at home and what to do in the event your dog does need vet care.

“I will teach you how to deal with minor emergencies like dogs claws being torn … a bee sting, they were bitten by a rattlesnake, they have something wrong with their coat. We teach it all,” she says.

“I will teach you what happens when your dog gets kicked by a horse or stomped by a cow. I will teach you if they get hit by a car which is something personally that happened to my dog. The things that you need to do before you get to the vet, on your way to the vet while you’re at the vet are the kind of things that we touch on in there.”

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The course includes hands-on work with live dogs and dummy dogs and a PowerPoint presentation.

She teaches prevention like household plant safety, knowing basic nutrition, exercise and dental care needs and shows how to make your own Elizabethan collar and emergency muzzle. How to deal with digestive emergencies is covered and also scarier situations like if your dog’s heart stops, they have gotten into poison or need CPR.

She’s taught the course to everyone from the everyday dog owner to working dog clubs.

“If you have a dog then I would recommend you take it,” she says.

She adds kids can take the course too, as long as parents think they’ll sit through the seven hours.

When her dog was hit by a car, Krieger leaned on what she learned in her instructor course.

She recalls returning home one day to find her dog covered in blood. She determined the dog had suffered a broken pelvis and quickly stabilized her on a solid board and wrapped her in a blanket. She says that kept the dog’s core table steady and her body functioning.

The emergency didn’t end there. Krieger had to perform CPR on her dog.

“It’s very tricky to know how to do it on a little dog,” she says. “How do you get that air into her lungs without losing air out the side of her face. So that was a great thing to know. And those things I probably wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t had my instructor course.”

Registration is open for the Aug. 28 course at the Hockey Hounds Recreation Centre. Demand has been high so she has opened extra spots recently and plans to return for another session in November.