Midazolam is a good sedative for rabbits, but not for dogs or cats.
Veterinary anesthesia is used to induce a state of unconsciousness in an animal. It is used during veterinary surgery and is often needed for diagnostic procedures, as animals often do not sit still long enough to perform certain tests. Medications used for veterinary anesthesia are usually inhalants or injections, and the anesthetics used in animals are the same as those used in humans.
Morphine is often used to sedate dogs.
An anesthetic has three main purposes: immobilization, unconsciousness, and analgesia, or pain relief. Some drugs can provide all of these effects when used alone, but a combination of drugs is often used in veterinary anesthesia. Sedatives may be used to immobilize the animal, an analgesic is used to relieve pain, and other medication may be administered to induce unconsciousness. A common combination is the use of opiates and tranquilizers to sedate an animal before inducing a state of general anesthesia. Opioids will not render an animal unconscious, but are used for pain relief, while tranquilizers will relax and calm the animal.
Guaifenesin is used in veterinary medicine to relax the animal before the administration of a general anesthetic.
Giphenesin is sold over the counter as an expectorant for people and is used in veterinary medicine to relax the animal before a general anesthetic is administered. Ketamine is often used as an anesthetic for children and animals. It is often used in combination with midazolam or diazepam for veterinary anesthesia, both of which are also used to sedate humans. Morphine is another drug commonly used for sedation in humans and animals.
Anesthetics can be used in animals for surgery or to keep the dog quiet and calm during examination and treatment.
Barbiturates are often used in veterinary anesthesia to induce short-term unconsciousness. Thiopental is the most widely used barbiturate for this stage of anesthesia, but other nonbarbiturate drugs have also gained popularity for anesthetic purposes. Propofol, when given intravenously, provides a rapid onset of unconsciousness but has no effect on pain, so it must be used in conjunction with an analgesic. Because combination drugs often have a synergistic effect, doses can be much smaller than when each drug is used alone.
Veterinary anesthesia will be used to perform surgeries on dogs and other animals.
Anesthetics affect different species in different ways, so a drug that is safe and effective in one type of animal may be harmful to another. For example, morphine is often used to sedate dogs, but when administered to a horse it can cause mania. Midazolam calms guinea pigs and rabbits, but has the opposite effect in dogs and cats, inducing a state of arousal. A veterinarian may encounter a variety of species in their practice and must be aware of the effect that different veterinary anesthetic drugs may have on each patient.