Originally Posted by elchivito

My vet has done emergency anaesthesia on large animals here a couple of times. It's risky and I'd only do it in a life threatening situation. I don't know about pets though. You can't take a downed show horse to the dr.'s office.
Stitching's easy. I normally do my own for small to medium cuts. Sub-Q lidocaine has little effect on heartrate, IM will affect it greatly. Normally I don't even stitch a 1 inch cut. If there's no arterial bleeding, I wash it out first with peroxide, then 7% iodine, wait till bleeding gets to the sticky stage, and glue it shut with superglue gel or NuSkin, same thing. Then I paint another layer of glue over the cut. A shot of long acting antibiotic and that's it. I've had lots of secondary infections from stitches, none when I use superglue and virtually no scarring.