What to Do If Your Pet Has an Emergency After Our Hours: A Colorado Springs Guide

Red Rock is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. We do not have an overnight staff or an after-hours on-call line, and unlike a lot of veterinary websites, we are not going to bury that fact. Pets do not read the clock, and some of the scariest moments of pet ownership happen at 10 p.m. on a Saturday. So this is the guide I want every one of our clients — and honestly, every pet owner in Colorado Springs — to have saved before they need it.

I am Dr. Robbie Unsell, the owner of Red Rock Veterinary Health on the Westside. Here is exactly what to do when something goes wrong outside our hours: how to tell a go-right-now emergency from something that can safely wait until morning, where to go tonight, and what we do for you the next day.

Step 1: Check for the go-right-now signs

If your pet has any of the following, do not wait, do not search forums, do not watch and see. Go to an emergency hospital now:

• Difficulty breathing: heaving sides, a stretched-out neck, blue or gray gums, or open-mouth breathing in a cat
• Collapse, inability to stand, or sudden extreme weakness
• Seizures: a first-ever seizure, more than one in a night, or any seizure lasting more than two minutes
• Unproductive retching with a swollen, tight belly, especially in large or deep-chested dogs. This can be bloat (GDV), and it is fatal within hours without surgery
• A male cat straining in the litter box and producing nothing. A blocked cat is a true emergency; the bladder can rupture and the potassium shift can stop the heart
• Major trauma: hit by a car, a fall, a crushing injury, or a dog fight with puncture wounds
• Bleeding that does not stop with five minutes of firm pressure, or gums that look white or pale pink
• Rattlesnake bite: a real risk on our Westside trails from spring through fall
• Suspected heatstroke: collapse or disorientation after exertion in our sun and altitude
• Straining in labor for more than 30 minutes with no puppy or kitten produced
• Known or suspected poisoning: antifreeze, rodenticide, xylitol gum, human medications, or a large amount of chocolate

Step 2: Know where you're going tonight

These are the after-hours emergency hospitals we refer our own patients to and coordinate with. Save both numbers now — the middle of the emergency is the worst time to be searching:

• Animal ER Care — (719) 260-7141 — 5520 N. Nevada Ave, Ste 150. Open 24/7, every day of the year. If it is the middle of the night, this is your door.
• Uintah Pet Emergency — (719) 633-3214 — 1635 W. Uintah St, Ste E, five minutes from us here on the Westside. Open daily, noon to midnight, including weekends and holidays.

Note the difference: Uintah covers evenings and weekends close to home, but it is not an overnight hospital. After midnight, go to Animal ER Care. Call while you are on the way if you can — telling them "three-year-old male cat, straining, no urine, twenty minutes out" means the team is ready when you walk in. Bring any medications your pet takes, the packaging of anything they ate, and your regular vet's name so records can follow.

If it might be poisoning, add one more call

For anything your pet ate or licked — chocolate, gum, medications, plants, cleaning products — the two national poison-control lines have veterinary toxicologists on call around the clock: ASPCA Animal Poison Control at (888) 426-4435 and Pet Poison Helpline at (855) 764-7661. A consultation fee applies, and it is worth every penny: they calculate the actual toxic dose for your pet's weight and give the ER a case number and treatment plan, which often saves you time and money once you arrive. For chocolate specifically, our chocolate emergency guide walks through doses and symptoms.

Step 3: The "can this wait until morning?" list

Plenty of scary-at-midnight problems are safe to see us for at 8 a.m. — and morning care with your regular vet is calmer, cheaper, and better informed by your pet's history. These can usually wait, provided your pet is otherwise alert, breathing normally, and able to rest:

• A single episode of vomiting or diarrhea in an adult pet who is otherwise behaving normally
• Limping, if your pet can still bear some weight and is not in severe pain
• A torn nail with bleeding that has stopped
• Mild ear scratching, head shaking, or a hot spot
• Itching, mild hives that are fading, or a rash without facial swelling
• Not finishing dinner once, in an adult pet who is otherwise bright
• A small cut that has stopped bleeding and does not gape open

Two honest caveats. First, puppies, kittens, seniors, and pets with chronic conditions have less reserve — the same symptom is more urgent in a twelve-week-old puppy or a fourteen-year-old cat, so call the ER and ask. Second, "wait until morning" means morning: call us at (719) 204-3647 right at 8 a.m. and say what happened overnight. We hold same-day urgent slots for exactly this, at $109 for the urgent exam.

While you wait for morning

Let your pet rest somewhere quiet, and check on them every couple of hours. You are watching for change: worsening effort to breathe, new vomiting, gums going pale, or your pet becoming unresponsive to your voice.

• If there has been vomiting, withhold food for the rest of the night but keep fresh water available.
• Do not give human medications. Ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and naproxen are toxic to dogs and cats — "a little Advil for the limp" creates a second, worse emergency.
• Write down times: when symptoms started, how many episodes, and what your pet ate and when. That timeline is genuinely useful to us at 8 a.m.
• If anything moves onto the go-now list overnight, go. The plan can change; the thresholds don't.

What happens at 8 a.m.

This is the part of the system most people don't see. Red Rock is built to be the daytime anchor in a network that covers your pet around the clock: we handle same-day urgent medicine Monday through Friday, and the emergency hospitals cover the nights and weekends. When your pet is seen overnight, call us the next morning. We request the ER's records, reconcile any new medications with what your pet already takes, and get the recheck scheduled — usually within one to three days. The ER saves your pet's night; we manage your pet's life. How that handoff works is its own post: what happens after an ER visit.