What should you actually do in a pet emergency?
Stabilise, phone ahead, and transport — and the single most useful preparation is knowing where your out-of-hours veterinary provider is before you need it, because that is frequently a different practice in a different place from your usual vet.
The immediate priorities:
Keep yourself safe. A frightened, painful animal will bite, including the gentlest one. Muzzle a dog if it is not vomiting or having breathing difficulty; wrap a cat firmly in a towel.
Phone the vet before setting off. They can prepare, advise on first aid en route, and tell you whether to come at all — and for some poisonings the advice given on the phone is the treatment that matters.
Keep the animal warm, quiet and still, and minimise handling.
Take packaging or a sample for suspected poisoning.
The specific situations that are genuinely time-critical:
Bloat or GDV — a distended abdomen, unproductive retching and restlessness, usually in deep-chested dogs. This kills within hours and is a surgical emergency.
Blocked bladder in male cats — straining in the litter tray with nothing produced, frequently mistaken for constipation. Fatal within a day or two and one of the most commonly missed emergencies.
Breathing difficulty, open-mouth breathing in a cat particularly.
Seizure lasting more than five minutes, or repeated seizures.
Suspected poisoning, including antifreeze, where hours matter.
Heatstroke — begin cooling immediately with cool water while arranging transport; do not wait.
Severe bleeding, where firm pressure with a cloth is the first action.
Inability to urinate, collapse, pale gums, a swollen painful abdomen, or eye injury.
What not to do: give human medicines, which are frequently fatal; induce vomiting without instruction; offer food or water before advice; or apply a tourniquet.
Prepare now, not then: save the out-of-hours number in your phone, know the route, keep a carrier accessible, understand what your insurance covers, and ask your vet about payment arrangements before an emergency rather than during one.
General information, not veterinary advice.