Hi Christine,

Thanks for your question.

You should absolutely do preanesthetic blood work prior to any surgical procedure. There are many clinics that require this and build it into the quote to the point that clients may not have a choice. Performing this test could find medical concerns that predispose your pet to risks or anesthetic complications and you may not currently know about them. There are many disease processes that you can find in blood work but the patient is showing no clinical symptoms of them.

I would recommend that you perform other pre-surgical testing as well. A urinalysis would help evaluate renal function. Many animal clinics offer a low-cost ECG (echocardiogram) test for cardiac function. This is the extent of testing I perform for what appears to be a healthy patient. If your pet has any identified health concerns, I would consider other testing to determine the severity of them. This also allows me to build a suitable anesthetic protocol that is tailor-made to your pet.

The downside is cost. Testing costs money but simple pre-surgical blood work, urine and even the ECG test is pretty affordable and is incredibly valuable.

Best of luck.

Dr. Clayton Greenway