What is the intravascular volume status of my canine or feline patient?

Assessment of volume (intravascular) status is a critical skill for small animal emergency veterinarians (dogs/cats). Point-of-care ultrasonography (POCUS) is emerging as a valuable, noninvasive, cage-side diagnostic tool for objective evaluation of physiologic and hemodynamic parameters related to volume status, fluid tolerance, and responsiveness. Rapid cage-side sonographic evaluation can obtain qualitative data on cardiac function even when performed by non-cardiologists. POCUS involves answering focused clinical questions using cage-side ultrasonography and increases the sensitivity of the conventional physical examination. That said, POCUS findings should be interpreted in conjunction with other clinical parameters—such as conventional perfusion parameters (heart rate, mentation, temperature, mucous membrane color, CRT, pulse quality), urine output, blood pressure, and body weight —and not viewed as an alternative to physical examination or standard imaging studies. In this video, I will describe the most commonly used views to assess volume status in dogs and cats: focused sonographic assessment of the heart (cardiac POCUS) and caudal vena cava (CVC POCUS).