Your cat is choking and they cannot breathe. Would you know what to do? In the case of a complete obstruction when an animal is choking, you have got minutes to deliver life saving first aid. So knowing what to do if your cat is choking could potentially save their life. Now when a cat is choking they often look frantic and petrified, their eyes are wide, their mouth is open, they might be frantically pawing at their face and it can be very, very difficult to actually get a good hold on them especially without being injured. So do take care if necessary where you can get a towel and wrap the cat in a towel just to try and protect yourself. It can be very difficult to look inside a cat's mouth at the best of times, so when they are frantic and panicking there's a good chance you are gonna get bitten and scratched, but try and take a look inside their mouth as best as possible. Have a good look as far back as you can. Can you see anything obstructing their airway? Cat's mouths are so small and obviously if you imagine when they are going frantic and they're thrashing around, if you try and put your fingers inside their mouth, there is a good chance that you might actually end up pushing the object further back into the airway. So with cats I would recommend that you pick them up, face them in a downwards position and deliver five back slaps between their shoulder blades. So you are trying to use gravity, you wanna try and dislodge that object to get it to come out. If that doesn't work you can move on to the Heimlich manoeuvre. So for the Heimlich manoeuvre you want to hold your cat's spine against your chest, make a small fist and place it underneath their rib cage. So at the end of their rib cage there's a little dip where their abdomen starts. You want to place your fist in there and you want to deliver five abdominal thrusts in a J motion, so you pull in and up. So in and up like this. If that hasn't worked and the object is still lodged in your cat's throat, go back to back slaps again, again use gravity, try and encourage that object to come out. Keep cycling between back slaps and the Heimlich manoeuvre to try and dislodge that object. You need to keep occasionally checking whether that object has become dislodged. So every now and again just take a look inside your cat's mouth, can you see the object anymore? Is your cat still choking? If your cat unfortunately loses consciousness due to a lack of oxygen, this can make it easier for you to look inside their mouth. So at that point, open up their mouth, pull their tongue forward to try and have a look as far back in the mouth as you can. If it is safe to do so, if you can see the object blocking the back of their airway, try and use a one finger sweeping motion to get behind the object and pull it out. Or alternatively again if it is safe to do so and you're not gonna risk pushing the object further back into the airway, you can try and use some tweezers or forceps to grab hold of that object and pull it out. Once the airway is clear and your cat is breathing, get them to the vets as soon as possible for an emergency appointment to get them checked over. If you get the airway clear and your cat is not breathing and they haven't got a heartbeat, then you need to start CPR as soon as possible and I have got a separate video on how to do that. I hope you found this video helpful. I really hope you never need to use it, but I think it's always best to be prepared. So please don't forget to like, favourite, share this video so that we can help educate more cat owners on life saving first aid so that more people know what to do if their cat ends up choking.
