Companion Animal Welfare

Dog Perioperative Pain Management Advances

How multimodal analgesia protocols are transforming pain control for dogs during and after surgery.

Key Facts

Uncontrolled perioperative pain delays recovery, increases stress, and impairs wound healing in dogs
Multimodal analgesia combining NSAIDs, opioids, and local blocks is now standard of care
Regional nerve blocks can provide surgery-site analgesia lasting hours after procedure completion
Pain assessment using validated scales (e.g. Glasgow CMPS) should guide postoperative dosing

Welfare Considerations

Pain management quality is a fundamental ethical responsibility in veterinary surgery. The era of withholding analgesia from surgical patients has passed - evidence conclusively shows that good pain control improves welfare and clinical outcomes simultaneously.

What You Can Do

Ask your vet about their specific perioperative pain protocol before scheduling surgery
Ensure you understand the post-operative pain signs to watch for at home
Choose veterinary practices that use validated pain scales for post-surgical assessment