Is death one of the side effects of anesthesia in dogs?

6 years ago

A small brown dog being held by a veterinarian

Hi Brendan,

I’m so sorry to hear about this.

Unfortunately, I have heard this story before and I’ll be honest, one of the only anesthetic deaths I saw in 16 years occurred similar to this. I performed a common surgery on a dog’s leg and it went perfectly. The dog recovered well and was standing in its cage and walking around. Then 2 hours later it just died suddenly. There were no unusual symptoms and no KNOWN pre-existing conditions. I sent the body to the top veterinary pathologist in the province for an autopsy and had them collect a variety of samples for evaluation and nothing came back to explain the incident. I reviewed the anesthetic protocol with my trusted technician which was redundant because I watched it myself, but all was in order. There was absolutely no explanation. It was unsettling for myself, the family and my clinic family. It was the only animal I lost in the past 16 years of doing countless anesthetics and surgeries.

All I can say is that there can be small imperfections that are impossible to know about before an anesthetic. There can be an extremely rare reaction to one of the drugs. It could be the sum total of stress on the body. There are these explanations that are impossible to confirm after the fact.

My only advice would have been to have the autopsy done by a pathologist at a veterinary school since these procedures are done extensively there and the pathologists have a vastly superior amount of knowledge and experience in this area than a general veterinarian. We just don’t do autopsies that often.

So I’m sorry to say that you are left with no explanation. But I’ll leave you with a point that is undeniable. You loved your dog through her life and that is the most important thing. Please don’t take this unfortunate event and make it more than it is. Don’t make that the memory you hold on to. It was a brief event in a lifetime of companionship with her. Try your best to celebrate her life and recognize that your mind is going to the thought of her mysterious death because it was traumatic for you but it holds little to no value. Try to celebrate her life often and you’ll find that the other issue fades.

Good luck and I wish you well.