Thirty miles from the nearest vet surgery, halfway up a Welsh hillside, with a dog that’s just been kicked by a ewe protecting her lamb. That’s when first aid knowledge matters.
I’ve seen too many good dogs lost not because their injuries were unsurvivable, but because nobody knew what to do in those critical first minutes. And I’ve seen dogs saved by farmers with no medical training who did exactly the right thing by instinct or because someone had shown them years ago.
This article is for the second group. The ones who want to be prepared.
Your Emergency Kit
Before we talk about what to do, let’s talk about what you need. Every working dog person should have a basic first aid kit that lives in the vehicle. Not at home. In the vehicle.
Here’s what mine contains:
- Conforming bandages (the stretchy ones that stick to themselves)
- Sterile gauze pads - various sizes
- Surgical tape
- Curved scissors (blunt-tipped)
- Disposable gloves
- Saline solution for wound irrigation
- Chlorhexidine antiseptic solution (diluted - ask your vet for the right concentration)
- Digital thermometer
- Tweezers
- Emergency foil blanket
- Muzzle or soft material to make one
I also keep a bottle of Nutriplus Gel or similar high-calorie paste for shock cases, and a few sachets of Lectade electrolyte solution. The specific brands don’t matter much - just have something that serves the purpose.
Understanding your dog’s genetic makeup, including whether they carry the MDR1 mutation, also matters in emergencies. MDR1-affected dogs can have serious reactions to common medications, so knowing this in advance could save their life if they need emergency treatment.
The Golden Rules
Whatever the emergency, three rules apply:
- Stay calm. Your dog picks up on your panic. Calm handling produces calm dogs.
- Safety first. An injured dog may bite. Even your own dog, even one that’s never shown aggression.
- Get to a vet. First aid buys time. It doesn’t replace professional treatment.
Bleeding
This is the one I see most. Dogs cut themselves on everything - wire fences, broken glass, sharp rocks, agricultural equipment. Some of these bleeds look terrifying but are manageable. Others look minor but aren’t.
Arterial Bleeding
Bright red blood that spurts rhythmically with the heartbeat. This is serious. You’ve got minutes, not hours.
Apply direct pressure with whatever you have - gauze, a clean cloth, your shirt if necessary. Push hard and don’t let go to check if it’s stopped. Keep the pressure on for a minimum of three minutes.
If blood soaks through, don’t remove the first layer. Add more on top and keep pressing.
Tourniquets are a last resort for limb injuries, but they’re a valid option if direct pressure isn’t controlling the bleed. Apply tight enough to stop the bleeding, note the time, and get to a vet immediately. A limb can survive tourniquet application for a couple of hours if necessary.
Venous Bleeding
Darker blood, steady flow rather than spurting. Still needs attention but you have more time.
Same principle: direct pressure, maintain it, don’t keep lifting to look.
Minor Cuts
Irrigate with saline to clean out debris, apply pressure if needed, and bandage to keep clean. Most of these can wait for a routine vet visit rather than emergency treatment.
A quick note on wound powders and sprays - products like Negasunt or iodine-based sprays have their place, but they’re not a substitute for proper cleaning. I’ve seen wounds made worse by people applying powder over dirt and debris.
Fractures
If a dog won’t bear weight on a limb and is in obvious pain, assume it’s fractured until proven otherwise. You can’t splint most canine fractures effectively in the field, so the goal is immobilisation and transport.
Don’t try to straighten the limb. Don’t attempt traction. Just keep the dog as still as possible and transport them with the injured leg up if practical.
For lower leg fractures, you can sometimes fashion a temporary splint from a rolled-up magazine or similar firm material, wrapped loosely enough not to cut off circulation. But honestly, most of the time you’re better off just getting to the vet quickly rather than faffing about with makeshift splints.
Eye Injuries
Eye injuries in working dogs are common and scary-looking. A dog that’s taken a bramble or thorn to the eye will often be pawing at their face, which makes everything worse.
Your immediate job: stop them touching it.
An Elizabethan collar from your kit is ideal. Failing that, wrap their head loosely with a bandage to cover (not touch) the injured eye. Don’t try to remove foreign objects - you’ll almost certainly make it worse.
Flush with saline if there’s obvious debris, but be gentle. Eye injuries need professional assessment as soon as possible because what looks minor can become sight-threatening very quickly.
Heat Stroke
Working dogs on hot days, especially the black ones, are at serious risk. I lost count of how many heat stroke cases I saw during that scorching summer a few years back.
Signs:
- Excessive panting that doesn’t settle
- Bright red gums
- Thick, ropy saliva
- Unsteadiness, confusion
- Collapse
This is an emergency. Start cooling immediately:
- Move to shade
- Pour cool (not ice cold) water over them, focusing on the groin, armpits, and neck
- Offer small amounts of water to drink
- Create air flow - fanning, open car windows, whatever you have
- Get to a vet
A common mistake is using ice or ice-cold water. This actually constricts the blood vessels near the skin and can slow cooling. Cool tap water works better.
Once you’ve started cooling, don’t stop until you reach veterinary care or their temperature drops below 39.5°C.
Bloat (Gastric Dilatation-Volvulus)
Right, this one scares me and it should scare you too. Bloat can kill a dog in hours, sometimes faster.
Signs:
- Distended abdomen that feels tight
- Unproductive retching (trying to vomit but nothing comes up)
- Restlessness, pacing
- Drooling
- Rapid decline
If you suspect bloat, you have one job: get to a vet immediately. There’s no first aid that helps here. Every minute matters.
Don’t try to make them vomit. Don’t give anything by mouth. Just drive.
I’ve seen health screening for breeding dogs include questions about bloat history in the line, because there does seem to be some hereditary component. But even dogs from lines with no history can bloat.
Poisoning
With herding dogs specifically, the poisoning risks I see most often are:
- Rodenticides (rat and mouse poison) - often accessed in barns and outbuildings
- Organophosphates - from sheep dips and agricultural chemicals
- Slug pellets (metaldehyde) - increasingly rare but still around
If you know or suspect poisoning:
- Note what they’ve eaten if possible - bring packaging to the vet
- Don’t induce vomiting unless specifically instructed by a vet
- Get to veterinary care immediately
For organophosphate exposure (usually contamination during sheep work), signs include excessive salivation, muscle tremors, and constricted pupils. These dogs need atropine urgently.
Keep the vet’s emergency number in your phone. Better yet, keep the number for your nearest emergency veterinary hospital too.
Shock
Many emergencies lead to shock - that’s the body’s response to serious injury or stress. Signs include:
- Pale or white gums
- Rapid, weak pulse
- Cold extremities
- Slow capillary refill (press the gums - they should go white then pink again within 2 seconds)
- Altered consciousness
For shock:
- Keep the dog warm (foil blanket)
- Keep them calm
- Don’t give food or water
- If they’re unconscious, position them on their side with head slightly lower than body
- Get to a vet
That high-calorie gel I mentioned earlier can help in mild shock cases, but severe shock needs IV fluids and proper treatment.
The Stuff I Can’t Teach You
Here’s the honest truth: first aid skills help, but nothing replaces knowing your dog and being observant.
I had a farmer bring me a Collie called Meg once. He said she was “a bit off” - eating normally, no obvious injury, just not quite right. Turned out she had a slow internal bleed from a kick she’d taken the day before. No external signs, nothing dramatic, but he knew his dog well enough to recognise something was wrong.
That’s worth more than any first aid kit.
Watch your dogs when they’re healthy so you know what normal looks like. Know their resting breathing rate, their normal gum colour, how they move when nothing’s wrong. That baseline knowledge is what helps you spot problems early.
When To Call It
This is the hardest section to write, but it needs to be here.
Sometimes, you’re too far from help. Sometimes, the injury is too severe. Sometimes, the kindest thing is to prevent further suffering.
If you’re facing a dog with injuries clearly incompatible with survival - massive trauma, obvious spinal cord damage - and veterinary care is hours away, you may need to make a difficult decision.
I’m not going to tell you how to do this. But I will say that having a plan, knowing your options, and discussing this with your vet beforehand is better than facing it unprepared.
Most emergencies aren’t this severe. Most dogs can be stabilised and transported. But “most” isn’t “all,” and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.
Building Your Skills
Reading this article is a start. But practical skills need practice.
Ask your vet if they offer first aid courses - many practices do. The British Red Cross runs canine first aid courses that are pretty good. Some breed clubs and working dog organisations offer training too.
Practice bandaging on a willing dog before you need to do it in a crisis. Know where your kit is and what’s in it. Keep emergency numbers programmed in your phone.
If you’re thinking about what happens when medical treatments interact with herding breed genetics, that’s good. Understanding your individual dog’s health picture - including genetic factors - makes you a better first responder.
The Text I Hope You Never Send
I’ve received a lot of texts and calls over the years that start with “Vet, I’ve got a problem.” Most of them have good outcomes because people kept their heads and did the right things.
The ones that don’t haunt me a bit.
Stay prepared. Stay calm. And remember that first aid buys time - it’s not a substitute for getting professional help. The goal is always to get your dog to someone who can properly assess and treat them.
But in those critical first minutes, what you do matters. And knowing what to do makes all the difference.