Surgery

At Prior Lake, we understand just how stressful bringing your pet in for surgery can be. That’s why we work so hard to ensure that each and every surgical experience is as stress-free as possible, both for you and for your pet. Our highly skilled veterinary surgeons perform a broad range of surgical services while always adhering to the highest standards of care. Our well-trained staff is also on hand to assist our doctors and to monitor our patients to ensure their safety and comfort at all times. We want you to feel confident that when your pet is in our care, he or she is in caring, capable hands.

General Surgery

At Prior Lake Pet Hospital, we offer a full range of routine and advanced surgical services. Our state-of-the-art surgical suite is fully equipped with everything needed to keep patients safe and comfortable, including a heated surgery table, advanced anesthesia machines and monitoring devices. Each procedure has a dedicated anesthesia technician monitoring your pet every step of the way, from pre-operative evaluation to advanced monitoring during surgery to a smooth, comfortable recovery. At Prior Lake, safety is our number one priority. This starts with tailoring your pet’s anesthesia to his/her needs and medical conditions rather than adopting a “one size fits all” approach.

Equally important is pain management. This starts before pain even begins with our pre-operative administration of pain medication. Pain management continues during surgery with the use of the surgical laser and a variety of other pain management techniques (epidural, nerve blocks and continuous rate infusion of pain medication). After surgery, all of our patients receive a cold laser therapy treatment which reduces pain and inflammation and speeds up healing. We also realize that pain does not begin and end at the hospital door. To that end, each patient is sent home with medication ensuring their continued comfort throughout their recovery.

Orthopedic Surgery

We perform a variety of orthopedic procedures at our pet hospital. Dr. Schwantes has a special interest in orthopedic surgery. He has invested many hours in continuing education and specialized training to become proficient in performing numerous orthopedic surgeries, including cruciate ligament repair, fracture repair and patellar luxation correction. For those instances where additional advanced expertise is warranted, board certified veterinary orthopedic surgeons are utilized to ensure that your pet receives the highest quality of surgical care and attention.

Laser Surgery

Prior Lake Pet Hospital is proud to be one of the few veterinary hospitals in the area to offer laser surgery as an added level of advanced surgical care. We use our surgical laser on all of our surgical patients. The benefits of utilizing this innovative technique include decreased pain, less swelling, less bleeding and a faster recovery time. We will continue to adopt and offer new technologies as they become available to ensure that our patients are always provided with the best available veterinary care.