[Dailydrool] Drawing Blood

[Beverly Szaton]

There are two main sites from which blood is usually drawn on a dog and a
third, not so often.
The first and fastest is the Jugular, but you have to be able to find it--
it rolls around, and I was never any good at it. Practice, unfortunately,
makes perfect. The second, the the easiest for me was the front leg but
there is a trick to this: next to the vein runs the radial nerve. It is
unbelievably easy to hit that nerve instead of the vein. You need an
assistant who really understands how to roll the vein off, so it pops right
up, and in a Basset, that is very, very difficult.
So my guess would be, alcohol aside, what happens is that with those wildly
contorted veins in the short, malformed (yes they are) front legs on a
Basset, that your Vet or tech misses the vein, or goes right through it, and
hits the radial nerve, and this, boys and girls, hurts. The dog WILL scream.
The dog WILL jerk. Sometimes, they even snap. (Which is another reason you
have a good tech holding the dog.) Not the dog's fault. Your fault. As you
crouch there trying to get another stick saying "I'm sorry sweetie, I am SO
SORRY, Oh poor baby I am SO SO SORRY" ....
Been there.
Done that.
Even on my own dogs.
It is awful but it happens.
(The third site is the back leg. We usually reserve that for dogs whose
mouths you want to stay waaaaaay away from....)

MomPerson who now lets Dead-Aim Doc draw blood. (Man never misses.)
Nigel (couldn't you just let it go?) Llewis (Blood? I faint at the sight of
blood) Conley (You want blood, lemme have some of yours) and Cooper (Oh not
again.)
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