Basic principles for reconstruction of problem skin defects: trunk, head, and neck.

When dealing with skin defects, the veterinary surgeon should always use the simplest, least time consuming, least expensive techniques first and use the more involved techniques only as they are necessary. For closing skin defects the 3 techniques that can be used are: shifting local tissue; flaps, or grafts. Shifting local tissue to close skin defects is the simplest means of reconstruction. Because of the abundance of loose elastic skin on dogs and cats, many defects can be closed using either this technique or local skin flaps.