Hydrotherapy for wound care involves the use of moving water. Hydrotherapy increases circulation, speeds healing, and reduces pain and inflammation.
Water temperature is extremely important, keep the water temperature cool/luke warm unless otherwise directed for therapeutic healing.
You can use a faucet, saline bag or even a garden hose. If your dog is small enough to use the kitchen sink, the little spray hose that many kitchen sinks have can work very nicely.
Run a gentle spray of water continuously over the wound for 5 minutes once or twice a day. If you’re using a shower head or other forceful spraying device make sure water pressure is down and hold the hand held part at least 30cm (a ruler distance) away from the skin. If water is hitting the skin with any significant force/pressure this will hinder healing not help it.
Use gentle running lukewarm water to stimulate the skin and wash away any debris daily until skin is healed. If this hurts, is too stressful for your pet or the skin wound starts to look worse, discontinue this and contact us asap.
After the hydrotherapy, pat the wound dry with clean paper towel, sometimes a topical medicine is also used at this time.
Edmonton Community Veterinary Clinic | Edmonton Alberta Canada 
should this wash all the blood clot / scab away until the shaved skin starts to turn white?
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Hi, use water spray to clean away any debris or buildup. Scabs should stay until they lift easily with the water pressure on their own. New pink skin should look healthy 🙂 Evan gnarly skin lesions can take 2-5 days to resolve when hydrotherapy is done 3-5 times per day! Any worsening symptoms -> see your family vet asap, or book an e-consult with us (and send us pictures).
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