Define "Safe"

I love the Internets, honestly I do. But where once Dire Warnings® were transmitted from dog lover to dog lover in the dog park or at a dog show, they now proliferate like algae on a pond on email lists, message boards, and blogs.

I'd be the last person on earth to say that we shouldn't heed warnings about outbreaks of infectious disease or emerging side effects of drugs. I just think that from time to time it would be nice to, you know, check such warnings for credibility before passing them on.

And while we're at it, let's check them for effectiveness, too.

Someone posted a warning to one of my email lists a while ago. It basically said nothing more than, "Never let a vet give your dog ketamine. It's not safe."

So right after my head exploded, I made a simple request:

Please define "safe."

I really resist those warnings that say something or other isn't "safe" in absolute terms. As I said recently either here or on the K9 Nutrition list,  or who knows, maybe I just mumbled it to myself, lying in bed isn't safe, either.

Things have risks and benefits, and those compare to the risks and benefits of alternative courses of action, and also to the risks and benefits of inaction.

On further investigation, the poster's dog turned out to have suffered seizures following anesthesia with a protocol that included the drug ketamine. She reported that her vets told her that her dog's seizures "could not have been" caused by ketamine.

Since seizures are caused in nearly all dogs who are given ketamine alone, and ketamine is listed as being contraindicated for dogs with seizure disorders, these vets clearly are incompetent if they actually told her seizures "could not be" caused by ketamine. (I say "if" because in my experience, what vets say and what people claim they say, or perhaps just what people hear, are often worlds apart. And unfortunately, sometimes vice versa.)

Seizures are not, however, a common side effect of ketamine as it's normally used (ie, in combination with other drugs, usually valium, to induce anesthesia), in dogs without an underlying seizure disorder. So if those weren't their exact words, it's possible this is just a misunderstanding. But if they really meant that the seizures could not have been, in other words, that it's impossible the seizures were, caused by ketamine, then my advice is, find a new vet immediately.  Who knows what else they don't know and don't understand?

However, that doesn't mean that a statement that ketamine is "not safe" really contains much useful information. "Not safe" for whom, compared to what, used how? These things need to be put in context or they go in one ear and out the other, or alternatively, become the subject of endless Internet email forwarding campaigns and mass hysteria. Hard to figure in advance which one of those two extremes will be the winner. But it won't help a single dog, and might cause some harm.

Comments

[Nancy Campbell]

I hope like heck that wasn't on one of the lists that I'm also on, because that means I missed an opportunity.

I use ketamine every single day on the job...the one I drive to every day. The one that I obviously risk life and limb to get to. Maybe I shouldn't drive. After all, driving isn't safe.
*snort*

[Alison Brendel]

There's always the time I saw a horse get it's catheter fulshed with Ketamine. Something I hope never to see happen again. PLEASE mark your syringes! It wasn't a pretty sight. Ketamine is a great product if used corectly, but that means in combination or following other drugs. By itself, it does give you a whole new meaning to dissociative.

[Christie]

I'm not a fan of ketamine use and avoid it. I don't mean to defend it, certainly. But there are useful and useless ways to discuss it, and saying it's not safe is the latter.

Nice post, Christie. Why, I bet you're the kind of owner who would give a Deerhound a raisin!

Big Evil Grin.

Shari

[KathyF]

You are dead right: lying in bed isn't safe.