How To Administer Injections

If you need to give your pet injections at home, I'm sure that your veterinarian or one of your hospital's staff members have already taught you what to do and walked you through the motions, so treat this as a refresher. Probably the most common reasons you will have to give injections to your pet would be to administer insulin to manage diabetes, allergy injections to help build your pets immunity against specific antigens, or subcutaneous fluids to help treat dehydration as is often necessary when managing pets with kidney disease. The principles of administering the subcutaneous injections are all the same-the key is to lift or, as we like to say, tent up the skin, introduce the needle at about a 45 degree angle all the way through the skin, then depress the plunger.

Before we demonstrate the exact procedure, let's start with the basics of preparing, or loading, the syringe. Both the allergy serums and insulin should always be kept in the refrigerator, and both need to be mixed prior to injection. With insulin, it is very important not to shake the bottle, as this can denature the insulin. Insulins need to be gently rolled and rocked to mix the contents, whereas most allergy serums and subcutaneous fluids can be shaken a bit more vigorously, though gently is always best. Once the bottle is mixed, you want to stick the needle and syringe into the rubber cap at the bottle top (there's usually a small circle in the center that you should aim for), turn the bottle and attached syringe upside down and begin to slowly draw the liquid into the syringe just past the desired amount. Go slowly so you don't fill the syringe with a lot of air bubbles. Now, still holding the syringe and bottle upside down, gently tap the syringe to bring any bubbles to the top near the needle itself, and then advance the plunger up to the appropriate mark on the syringe, evacuating any of the bubbles back into the bottle in the process. Now pull the syringe and needle out of the bottle, replace the bottle back into the fridge and you're ready to inject.

There are many areas on the body that can be used-the most common along the back at the neck/shoulder region, and just in front of the hip area. Wherever there seems to be a lot of loose skin is a good spot. Again, I recommend tenting up the skin, introducing the syringe at a 45 degree angle, and injecting. One tip-don't keep your finger on the plunger as you are introducing the syringe through the skin, since you may start depressing it before the needle is completely through the skin. Better to hold the syringe like a dart, puncture through the skin, then re-position your finger and push the plunger. It all seems pretty scary, but it's not that tough