General anesthesia is used every day in most practices. While anesthesia is not totally risk-free, the risk has been greatly reduced by the availability of pre-anesthetic blood tests, improved anesthetic drugs, state of the art monitoring equipment and increased veterinary expertise. Today, cats of all ages are acceptable candidates for anesthesia. Procedures that require anesthesia/sedation are: Surgery, dental procedures, x-rays, ear flush, anal gland expression, and management of aggressive cats.