Pet CPR class offered for animal lovers in Macon and surrounding counties
Dr. JoAnne Roesner DVM, DABVP, a veterinarian at Rabun Animal Hospital, is once again holding her potentially life saving pet CPR event.
It will be Aug. 19 at the Sky Valley-Scaly Mountain Volunteer Fire Department, located at 169 Hale Ridge Road. It starts at 4 p.m. sharp and will take around two hours. RSVPs are required and can be made by emailing joanneroesner@yahoo.com.
For safety and ease, Roesner stressed pets are not allowed at the event. There will be a CPR mannequin and pets that can safely be practiced on.
The free event will cover how and when to give your dog or cat aid as well as how to respond to various common emergencies or accidents. Attendees will learn how to notice and take care of internal and external emergencies, and when and how to do possibly life saving practices like CPR or the Heimlich Maneuver correctly. It will also cover how a pet may react to an emergency and how to restrain and transport them safely.
The seminar will have stations covering topics like seizures, toxins, snake bites, fractures, diarrhea and vomiting, difficulty breathing, heat stroke and prevention, and electrocution. They will also cover keeping yourself and your pets safe in the event of an accident. Attendees will be grouped to rotate through the stations.
Roesner sees exotic pets, which many clinics nearby do not. The CPR event will not cover exotic pets, but Roesner will be available to answer questions at the seminar.
Additionally, Roesner aims to equip people with knowledge about preventative pet care, such as controlled roaming, avoiding falls, reactions to emergencies, and substances that can be toxic to pets, like human medication and various foods.
Roesner will teach people how to use the safest products, teaching pets how to not get bitten by a snake, and more to avoid emergencies.
Roesner explained incorrectly performing first aid like CPR can be harmful in both pets and humans, leading to rib fractures or other complications. She also said it is important to know when to perform CPR.
“The only reason to do CPR is cardio-pulminary arrest or compromise. If your dog is breathing and has a heartbeat, it probably doesn’t need CPR… You want to implement it when it is needed, but you don’t want to implement it until it is needed. What we teach people is when. Do you hear a heartbeat? We have them check pulses,” Roesner said.
Roesner said there is no emergency clinic centered in Cashiers or Highlands for nearly two hours.
“How do you know what’s a real emergency and what the heck do you do to keep your pets possibly alive during that two hour drive,” Roesner asked.
Roesner has been teaching this clinic for around 25 years after a patient witnessed their dog get struck by a car and they didn’t know what to do. The dog was thankfully okay, but Roesner didn’t want others to find themselves in the same shoes.
“There is no way you would know what to do, and you would feel helpless,” Roesner said.
After the patient came to her, Roesner began teaching the annual seminar for free, teaching pet first aid and CPR. She wrote the manual on her CPR training with hopes of informing people how to assess emergencies and react to them.
“This is my gift to the world. It is a big part of who I am,” Roesner said.
Roesner has been a veterinarian since 1986, operating near Atlanta. She had owned her clinic since 1993. She sold that clinic in 2018, where she retired to Scaly Mountain after a lifetime of dreaming about living in the mountains of North Carolina. Roesner hit a crisis point when she was younger and received help from another.
“Out of that came the desire to make the world a better place and also to be the change in somebody else’s life when it wasn’t going so well,” Roesner said.
Roesner plans to continue holding this event annually as long as she can. She hopes Rabun Animal Hospital will continue hosting this event, filling a need in the community.
For animal health and safety, Roesner said, “I would encourage everybody to seek veterinary advice if you’re getting a pet, especially exotics… Client education is absolutely essential for pet health.”
For more information on the event, contact Roesner at joanneroesner@yahoo.com.