K9 MARCH: A Systematic Approach to the Injured Working Dog

By Kevin Wilson | Firefighter/Paramedic | Founder, IFAK360
Published September 8, 2026

When a working dog is seriously injured, the injury may be obvious. You may see blood, an open wound, or an obvious deformity. But sometimes you won't know where the dog is injured until you actually put your hands on the dog and look for it.

That is one of the reasons a systematic trauma assessment matters. When the situation allows, that may mean removing or loosening the dog's vest or other equipment and physically examining the animal rather than assuming the first injury you see is the only injury you have. Look for blood. Perform a blood sweep. Get your hands on the dog and work through the body deliberately, feeling and looking for injuries that may be hidden underneath the coat, vest, harness, or other equipment.

I'm not a veterinarian, and I don't pretend to be one. My background is in human prehospital medicine. But there is something about assessing an injured dog that reminds me a lot of assessing a pediatric trauma patient. They move. They squirm. They cry or vocalize. They may be frightened. They can't tell you, "It hurts right here," or give you a clean history of everything that happened. So you assess the patient in front of you. You expose what needs to be exposed, look, feel, reassess, and systematically determine what is injured, what is immediately life-threatening, and what needs to happen next.

That last part is especially important because trauma patients can have distracting injuries. An obvious injury can command your attention while another, less obvious problem is also developing. A large bloody wound is hard to ignore. It may absolutely need immediate treatment, but you can't let it prevent you from continuing your assessment of the rest of the dog. That is where MARCH becomes useful.

MARCH Gives the Assessment a Flow

In trauma care, MARCH is one of the systems used to organize priorities: Massive Hemorrhage, Airway, Respiration, Circulation, and Hypothermia/Head Injury. K9 Tactical Combat Casualty Care (K9TCCC) applies tactical casualty-care principles to working dogs while accounting for important differences in canine anatomy and physiology. The Joint Trauma System continues to maintain K9TCCC guidance along with current Military Working Dog Clinical Practice Guidelines covering areas such as airway management, wound management, heat injury, hypothermia and cold injuries, documentation, and other aspects of canine care.

K9 Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (K9-TECC) applies similar principles to civilian operational environments, making it particularly relevant to law-enforcement K9 teams. You may hear MARCH, M²ARCH², M³ARCH², or other canine adaptations depending on the training program. Some variations incorporate considerations such as movement and muzzling around the traditional MARCH sequence. The terminology can vary, but the underlying purpose remains similar: work through immediate life threats in a deliberate order instead of becoming distracted by the most obvious injury.

The acronym helps you remember the flow. The systematic assessment helps you find the problems. When the situation is chaotic and the patient can't tell you what's wrong, having that sequence gives you somewhere to start and somewhere to go next. You still have to think, assess, and adapt to what you find. MARCH helps organize that process, but it doesn't replace judgment, training, veterinary care, or your agency's medical protocols.

Before the Medicine: Move, Muzzle and Find the Injury

One of the reasons canine casualty care deserves its own training is that treating a working dog isn't exactly the same as treating a human casualty. Before we get very far into the medicine, we have to be able to safely reach and treat the dog. In a tactical environment, that may mean getting the dog away from an active threat or into an area where treatment can reasonably occur.

Then there is something every K9 handler understands, but anyone assisting the handler needs to remember: your patient has teeth. A working dog that is normally predictable with its handler may react differently when seriously injured. Pain, fear, confusion, breathing difficulty, or simply manipulating an injured area can change the dog's response very quickly.

That is why a muzzle, when appropriate, isn't just another accessory in the medical bag. It helps protect the people who need to put their hands on the dog and continue treating it. My Module 1-K9 includes a Size 3 quick-release nylon K9 muzzle for that purpose.

Putting a muzzle on doesn't mean the dog suddenly becomes cooperative. The dog may still turn toward you, lunge, move, pull away, or attempt to bite while you're assessing and treating it. An appropriately fitted muzzle provides a physical barrier from the teeth while you continue working around the dog's movement. You may have to reposition yourself, regain control, maintain pressure on a wound, or continue exposing and treating injuries while the dog moves.

Muzzling is not automatic. Airway compromise, vomiting, significant facial trauma, respiratory distress, altered consciousness, the dog's condition, handler training, and applicable protocols can all affect that decision. The point isn't simply to put a muzzle on every injured dog. The point is to protect the people who need to get close enough to assess and treat the animal while recognizing situations where muzzling may not be appropriate.

Once you can safely get your hands on the dog, you have to find the injuries. A dog's coat can hide a surprising amount, and working-dog equipment can hide even more. A vest or harness may cover exactly the area you need to examine. Blood can track through fur, collect underneath equipment, or originate somewhere other than where you first notice it.

Remove or loosen equipment as necessary when the environment and the dog's condition allow it. Look underneath the vest and harness. Perform a blood sweep and use your hands to systematically examine the dog rather than relying only on what you can see. Look at your gloves as you move through the assessment. Blood transferred to your gloves can help identify an injury hidden underneath the coat that wasn't visually obvious. This is also why I use blue nitrile gloves in Module 1-K9. The blue glove gives me a consistent background when I'm looking for blood during a sweep, which can provide another visual clue that I've found an injury underneath the coat.

Finding one injury doesn't mean you're finished looking. If you identify massive hemorrhage, treat it, but once that immediate threat is being controlled, continue your assessment. There may be another wound underneath the vest, on the opposite side of the body, or buried underneath the coat.

Work the Priorities: M, A, R, C and H

M: Massive Hemorrhage

There is a reason massive hemorrhage comes first. Severe external bleeding can become life-threatening quickly, and some of that bleeding can be controlled immediately at the point of injury.

The practical question is straightforward: if your dog has life-threatening bleeding right now, what are you reaching for? Can you apply direct pressure? Can you pack an appropriate wound? Do you have a hemostatic dressing? Can you secure the packing and maintain pressure? If you're dealing with uncontrolled extremity hemorrhage, do you have an appropriate tourniquet option, and have you trained with it?

Those considerations are why Module 1-K9 contains QuikClot 4×4 hemostatic gauze, wound-packing gauze, a 4-inch Emergency Trauma Dressing, sterile 4×4 gauze, a 3-inch cohesive bandage, and a SWAT-T elastic tourniquet.

Canine anatomy matters here. A dog's tapered limb isn't shaped like a human arm or leg, and that affects how tourniquets perform. I've covered that issue in much greater detail in the previous IFAK360 Resource article, K9 Hemorrhage Control: Built for the Animal Who Cannot Tell You Where It Hurts.

The larger principle is that MARCH identifies the problem first. Your equipment should give you a way to address the problems you're trained to manage. Control the immediate threat, then continue assessing the dog.

A: Airway

After immediately life-threatening hemorrhage has been addressed, move to the airway. A dramatic bleeding injury can consume everyone's attention, but controlling that bleeding doesn't mean the assessment is finished. Is the airway open? Is something obstructing it? Has the dog's condition or responsiveness changed? Is there facial or neck trauma that could affect the airway?

Airway care can quickly progress from basic assessment into advanced procedures requiring substantially more training and capability. Current Joint Trauma System Military Working Dog guidance includes dedicated recommendations for emergency airway management.

This brings up an important principle when evaluating any trauma kit: owning a piece of medical equipment does not create the training to use it. More equipment does not automatically mean more capability. For a handler, recognizing that the dog has an airway problem, performing appropriate interventions within training and protocol, and moving toward definitive veterinary care may be much more useful than carrying advanced equipment nobody present is trained or authorized to use.

R: Respiration

Next comes Respiration, or breathing. This is another area where an injury may not initially look as dramatic as external hemorrhage but can still become life-threatening. Penetrating chest trauma is one example, and it reinforces why the physical assessment remains important. You're still looking, feeling, and exposing the patient as necessary. An injury hidden underneath a vest or coat doesn't become less serious simply because you couldn't see it initially.

Module 1-K9 contains one HyFin Vent Chest Seal as part of its trauma capability. If you carry a chest seal, don't wait until your dog is injured to figure out how it works. Watch the HyFin Vent Chest Seal application video

The important question under Respiration isn't simply whether you own a chest seal. It's whether you can recognize a serious chest injury, understand what the equipment you're carrying is intended to accomplish, know how to use it within your training and protocols, and recognize when the dog needs higher-level care. The equipment supports the assessment. It doesn't replace it.

C: Circulation

By the time you reach Circulation, you've already addressed obvious life-threatening external hemorrhage, but you're still looking at the dog as a whole. Does the dog appear to be deteriorating? Has responsiveness changed? Are there other findings that concern you?

For many handlers, there may not be much they can personally do in the field to correct a circulation problem beyond the hemorrhage-control measures already performed. That's okay. Recognizing a problem is still useful information. Take note of what you're finding and continue the assessment.

Those observations become part of the information you can give the emergency veterinarian. What happened? What did you find? What did you treat? What changed? How did the dog respond? That information can become important as the dog moves from point-of-injury care toward definitive veterinary treatment.

You don't have to be able to fix everything you find. Sometimes the important thing is to recognize it, remember it, communicate it, and keep moving.

H: Hypothermia and Head Injury

The H in canine adaptations of MARCH commonly brings us to Hypothermia and Head Injury. Temperature management matters in trauma, but with working dogs we also have to consider the environment and what the dog was doing immediately before the injury. A working dog may be operating in cold conditions, but it can just as easily have been working hard in significant heat.

For preventing heat loss, think about actual insulation rather than simply the ultrathin metallic emergency blanket commonly found in first-aid kits. Keeping a durable insulating blanket with the K9 gear or in the vehicle is a practical solution. A wool blanket is a good option, but it isn't the only option. Fleece, another durable insulating blanket, or an appropriate sleeping bag can serve the same general purpose. If circumstances allow, don't forget what is underneath the dog. Insulating the dog from a cold surface can also help reduce heat loss.

A reflective emergency blanket can still have a role as part of a layered system, particularly as a wind- or moisture-resistant outer layer, but it isn't the same thing as a substantial insulating layer. This is also something a handler can easily add to their own K9 equipment without buying anything from IFAK360.

Head injury gives us another reason to continue watching the entire dog. Changes in responsiveness, behavior, coordination, or other neurologic findings may become important as the situation evolves. Again, don't let the large visible injury become the only thing you see. You may have successfully controlled a bleeding wound, but you still have an entire patient in front of you.

After MARCH: Go Back and Look Again

Completing MARCH doesn't mean you're finished assessing the dog. Once you've worked through the immediate priorities, go back through the patient again, only slower and in more detail. This is the secondary assessment or secondary survey, a systematic head-to-tail examination intended to identify additional injuries that weren't discovered during the initial assessment.

Get your hands back on the dog. Work systematically from head to tail. Look underneath equipment. Feel through the coat. Look at your gloves. Recheck the injuries you've already treated and deliberately look for injuries you may have missed the first time.

This is where the blood sweep and hands-on assessment become important again. The first pass is about identifying and addressing immediate life threats. The secondary assessment gives you another opportunity to find the quieter injuries that weren't demanding your attention the first time. If the dog's condition suddenly deteriorates during that more detailed assessment, return to your primary priorities and work through them again.

The secondary assessment also gives you better information for the emergency veterinarian. Instead of simply arriving and saying your dog was injured, you can explain what happened, what you found, what you treated, what changed, and what you discovered during your more detailed examination.

Does Your K9 Medical Kit Support What You've Been Trained to Do?

Now take everything we've just worked through and apply it to the medical gear you actually carry for your dog. Don't start by asking how many pieces of equipment are in your bag. Start with the problems you're trained to identify and manage.

If your dog is injured tomorrow, can you safely get your hands on them? Do you have what you need for uncontrolled hemorrhage? What can you realistically do for an airway or breathing problem within your training? Do you have a practical way to protect the dog from heat loss during treatment and transport? Do you know where everything is without digging through the bag trying to remember what you packed?

Put your own equipment in front of you and work through MARCH. Ask whether your kit supports what you've actually been trained to do. If it does, great. It doesn't need to look like my kit.

If you identify a gap, that's useful information too. Maybe a piece of equipment is missing. Maybe you own it but don't know how to use it. Maybe you've been carrying something for years and aren't really sure why it's there. Finding that out with your dog healthy and your medical bag sitting on a table is much better than discovering it when your partner is injured.

Bringing This to WSPCA

The 2026 Washington State Police Canine Association Fall Seminar takes place September 14 through 16 in Vancouver, Washington, hosted by the Southwest Washington Regional K9 Training Group. I'll be at the seminar helping with K9 casualty-care training, and this is one of the ways I want handlers to think about the equipment they carry.

If you're attending, bring the medical gear you actually carry. We'll look at it through the same systematic approach, but instead of simply asking what stuff you have, we'll start with the patient. Your dog is injured. Can you work through your priorities with what you carry?

Can you safely get your hands on the dog and find an injury that isn't immediately obvious? Can you control uncontrolled hemorrhage? What can you realistically do if there's an airway or breathing problem? What can you recognize even when you can't fix it in the field? Can you protect the dog during treatment and transport? After completing the initial MARCH assessment, can you go back through the dog systematically and look for what you may have missed?

If your current equipment supports those priorities, great. If we identify a gap, that's useful too. It's much better to find that gap with your medical bag sitting on a table and your dog healthy than when your partner is injured in front of you.

MARCH gives us an acronym that's easy to remember, but that's not its only value. It gives us a systematic flow for assessing a traumatic injury when the situation is chaotic and the patient can't tell us what's wrong. Know the flow, get your hands on the patient, find the injuries, treat the immediate priorities, reassess, and then slow down and perform a more detailed secondary assessment.

That's the system.

Sources & Further Reading

• Joint Trauma System Military Working Dog Clinical Practice Guidelines
• K9 Tactical Combat Casualty Care Guidelines, 2023
• K9 Combat Casualty Care Committee Recommended K9 First Aid Kit Annex
• K9 Tactical Emergency Casualty Care Guidelines
• Trauma Secondary Survey, StatPearls

About the Author

Kevin Wilson is a firefighter/paramedic, Navy veteran, Stop The Bleed instructor, and founder of IFAK360. He brings more than two decades of prehospital experience to practical first-aid, trauma, and preparedness education. IFAK360 develops modular medical and trauma kits built around practical field experience, straightforward organization, and the belief that people should understand the equipment they carry before they need it.

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