BILLINGS — For more than a year, Billings veterinarian Diana Kuehn has wrapped up surgery on her animal patients with a laser treatment to help the incision heal more quickly.

After Kuehn completed a recent spaying of a petit dachshund, veterinary technician Cassie Baker moved a pen-like wand back and forth over the pup’s tummy incision for several seconds.

The wand was attached to a device the size of a toaster that delivered a tissue-penetrating light wave that would stimulate cells to heal.

Although the procedure is still considered an alternative medical treatment, research at universities around the country is confirming what Kuehn has found in her practice at Caring Hands Veterinary Hospital.

When receiving laser after surgery, rarely have her animal patients had inflammation or infection in the incision.

Incisions heal more quickly, too.

Kuehn also has used laser treatments on injuries that scraped off skin, painful gum disease in cats, arthritic joints and back pain in middle-aged and older dogs.

So far, Kuehn doesn’t do laser surgery. But she uses several other high-tech devices that help her care for patients.

Technology has improved human health care, resulting in longer lives, safer and sometimes fewer surgeries and better medicines.

It’s doing the same for pets.

Many high-tech machines and procedures developed for people now are used in the care of pets.

Although the cost of some equipment still makes its use feasible for only larger veterinary practices, other equipment has shrunk in size and cost to the point that smaller animal hospitals like the one Kuehn operates for pets and birds with veterinarian Olivia Seddon.

One of Kuehn’s most recent acquisitions is a device that administers the BAER (Brain Auditory Evoked Response) hearing test to detect deafness in dogs.

About the size of a notebook, the electronic device has electrodes that are hooked into three very fine needles that are slipped into the skin below each ear and to the top of the head of the animal.

A soft earpiece is placed in the dog’s ear. When clicks are sent through the earpiece, the device records the dog brain’s response to the noise. That information is sent to a computer, and Kuehn can get a printout for each ear.

Before getting the device this summer, she used a “pretty crude” way to test hearing. She’d clap her hands to see if the dog responded.

That method wasn’t perfect because so many variables could invalidate the test. The dog had to be out of sight of her hands and could not be close enough to feel air movement.

The $35 BAER test not only detects hearing problems in older dogs, but congenital hearing loss, too. Because some breeds have a tendency toward congenital deafness, breeders want to know which pups are deaf so they can avoid breeding them.

Kuehn also has a simple, accurate way to check for glaucoma, a disease that can cause blindness in animals as well as humans. Some breeds have a congenital tendency toward developing glaucoma. It also develops in older dogs.

After Kuehn puts a topical anesthetic in a dog’s eye, she uses a tonopen, a pen-like device that measures the pressure inside the eye with a light tap on the cornea.

“They usually are quite good about” having the test done, she said about her canine patients.

The test can detect glaucoma early enough for it to be treated.

Kuehn continues to use a conventional X-ray machine at her hospital instead of newer digital radiography, which is more expensive.

Digital machines can top $78,000, while regular X-ray machines cost $15,000 to $20,000.

Instead, Kuehn has a radiographic digital converter that converts regular X-rays into digital images so she can send them to specialists anywhere in the country.

She recently sent a digital image to a board-certified veterinary radiologist in Colorado who can enhance X-rays and then consult with Kuehn on a diagnosis.

That’s just one example of how the Internet has revolutionized veterinary medicine.

Kuehn can take digital photos or videos of ailing pets and send them along with lab reports and her evaluations to specialists at vet schools.

She also subscribes to Veterinary Information Network, an online service. If she has a question about one of her winged patients, she can post a query on the site, and avian specialists can post responses.

“The electronic age has given us a tremendous help,” she said. “It’s pretty amazing what we have available.”

As in human medicine, more expensive equipment increases the price of treatment, although pet health care costs remain a fraction of what it costs to treat humans.

Some pet owners will pay for those extras, and some, even if they love their pets just as much, won’t or can’t afford to.

“It depends on the economy and how a pet fits into the family,” Kuehn said.

Even without an expensive, high-tech test, a pet can receive high-quality care.

If someone doesn’t want to pay for a higher-priced test for a pet, Kuehn can work on a diagnosis and treatment without it.