Dog First Aid Guide was founded with a single urgent mission: to give dog owners the knowledge and confidence to respond effectively when their pet faces a medical emergency. Every guide on this site is written or reviewed by licensed veterinarians with hands-on experience in emergency and critical care medicine, ensuring the information you find here is accurate, actionable, and aligned with current veterinary best practices.
Our Mission
Thousands of dogs die each year from emergencies that could have been survivable with timely first aid. A dog choking on a toy, a puppy that ate chocolate, a senior dog suffering heatstroke in a parked car, these are situations where the minutes between the event and veterinary care determine the outcome. Our mission is to bridge that gap with clear, expert-reviewed emergency guides that any dog owner can follow under pressure.
We believe that pet first aid education should be accessible to everyone. That is why every guide on Dog First Aid Guide is available free of charge. We do not gate our content behind subscriptions, and we do not dilute our medical information with advertisements that compromise readability. Our commitment is to your dog's safety first, always.
Our Editorial Standards
Every article published on Dog First Aid Guide undergoes a rigorous editorial process. Content is drafted by veterinary professionals with direct clinical experience in the topic area. Each article is then reviewed for medical accuracy by a second veterinarian and edited for clarity and readability by our editorial team. We update our guides regularly to reflect new research, updated treatment protocols, and evolving best practices in veterinary emergency medicine.
We are transparent about the limitations of written guides. No article can replace hands-on veterinary care, and we consistently emphasize throughout our content that professional veterinary evaluation should always follow any emergency first aid. Our guides are designed to help you stabilize your dog and provide critical initial care during the time it takes to reach a veterinarian, not to replace the veterinarian.
Meet Our Team
Dr. Marcus Rivera, DVM
Founder & Lead Publisher
Dr. Marcus Rivera is an emergency and critical care veterinarian with over 15 years of clinical experience in small animal emergency medicine. He completed his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and spent a decade practicing at one of Chicago's busiest emergency veterinary hospitals before founding Dog First Aid Guide.
Dr. Rivera has treated thousands of emergency cases ranging from poisonings and traumatic injuries to cardiac arrest and respiratory failure. His firsthand experience with the gap between when emergencies occur and when pets reach professional care inspired him to create a resource that empowers owners to act during those critical first minutes. He has conducted over 200 pet first aid workshops for dog owners, trainers, groomers, and shelter staff, and is a member of the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society (VECCS).
As lead publisher, Dr. Rivera oversees all content on Dog First Aid Guide, ensuring that every guide meets the highest standards of medical accuracy and practical usefulness. He personally authors the majority of the site's emergency response guides and reviews all content before publication.
Dr. Helen Cartwright, DVM, DACVECC
Senior Medical Reviewer
Dr. Helen Cartwright is a board-certified veterinary emergency and critical care specialist (Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care). She earned her DVM from Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and completed a three-year residency in emergency and critical care at a Level I veterinary trauma center.
Dr. Cartwright brings over 12 years of specialized experience to Dog First Aid Guide. Her clinical interests include toxicology, heat-related illness, traumatic injury stabilization, and the development of evidence-based emergency protocols for companion animals. She has published peer-reviewed research on canine thermoregulation, snakebite management, and optimizing outcomes in gastric dilatation-volvulus cases.
As senior medical reviewer, Dr. Cartwright provides the critical second layer of veterinary review for all content published on the site. Her board certification in emergency and critical care ensures that our guides reflect the most current, evidence-based approach to each emergency topic. She also contributes original articles in her areas of expertise, including heatstroke, bloat, toxicology, and fracture management.
Contact Us
We welcome feedback, questions, and suggestions from our readers. If you have a topic you would like us to cover, if you have found an error in any of our guides, or if you simply want to share how our content helped you and your dog, please reach out through our contact page.
For press inquiries, partnership opportunities, or speaking engagements, please contact Dr. Marcus Rivera directly through the contact form with "Press" or "Partnership" in the subject line.
Publisher Information
Dog First Aid Guide is published by Dr. Marcus Rivera. Our editorial office is located at 445 Emergency Lane, Chicago, IL 60614. For legal and compliance information, please visit our legal notice page.