Pudsey's Hip Replacement
CLEOPATRA'S BATHE!
Nurses prepare a dog for a routine elective surgery of castration
Dog scrotal hernia!
News
May 2007
Lots has been happening in the Veterinary world of the Animal House. We are 1/3 busier than we were 3 months ago. That's why you can see from our web-site we are recruiting for new vets. We are also interviewing more support staff and have appointed a 'business manager' to deal with the office type of things that vererinary surgeries have to do. Carol Thompson has a legal background and was a company secretary and is a very welcome addition to the Animal House Team. She was also involved with Stoneleigh Polo Club and is multi-talented. She is the only one at The Animal House that you won't see hands-on with animals-lets see if that's still true a few months down the line!
We had a visitor on 1st May. A lady from Crick bid to spend the day with us seeing cases and exactly what we do behind the scenes for St. Margaret's Church, Crick, 'Promises' auction. Ann Ward, one of our key receptionists is involved with fund raising for the restoration of this fabulous historic building. We were pleased to be able to help with the fundraising and have someone not 'in the business' come and see what we do. She said she had a very interesting and enjoyable day. We are pleased to help with anything of this nature so please give us a call if we can do more.
Thursday, 10th May saw our biggest challenge yet. Pudsey's hip replacement. We have featured this specially and have allocated it space instead of one of our news months. It is taking time to prepare all the photos and video footage as it was a complex and major 6 and a half hour op. Due to the extreme congenital deformity it wasn't just any old hip replacement for which we would allocate 2 hours surgeon time. Hugh had to essentially re-site Pudsey's leg muscles as they had grown around his deformity to support it and as the hip and socket were corrected, then the muscles had to be moved to their new areas. Please read the detailed Pudsey's news which will appear shortly. Here is a photo of him the day after his op. He is now making an astonishingly good recovery.
The announcement for the prize donated by Novartis for the Animal House Polo team's first match of the season, was won by Mrs Zatonski of Rugby, so a year's worth of dog wormers are waiting for her dog. We played at RLS on the 12th of May but the final on the 13th was rained off-yet to be re-arranged. Thanks to everyone who attended. It was miserable weather but the small band of brave ones had fun-inside the club house mainly! We're doing lots more polo and 'our' ponies are looking very fine. Most of them are using a joint support of glucosamine and condroitin-the one with the very good research papers to back-up the results-all tested in the field, i.e. no invasive vivisection-and by gum we are seeing results in these ponies. It helps with arthritic changes and arrests the development of symptoms meaning the horse basically moves and feels better. It is also recommended in young horses to prevent ageing changes and keep them in peak condition for much longer than without it. We've reseached this field hard, and any old glucosamine will not give good results. If you want to find out more give us a ring and we can tell you all the important elements to look for.
Here are some photos. On Saturday 26th May Olivia Duffin did her BIG CLEOPATRA'S BATHE in aid of Cats Protection and Jane Dexter's rabbit rescue. She bathed for an hour in milk AKA Cleopatra. Olivia is 10 years old and it was all her own idea. She was actually in for 1 and a half hours as she's a bit keen-her skin was very soft, and wrinkly, afterwards. She has raised £30 (we rounded it up) sponsored by her friends at school and staff at The Animal House. The money will be split evenly between the rescues. If any one else wishes to do something similar for an animal charity we will be keen to help and put you on our news. Contact us at the surgery if you have any brain-waves.
We thought we'd show you something normal for a change. Here the nurses are preparing a dog for a routine elective surgery of castration. This is where the dog is not poorly but having the op to give him a longer lifespan and not breed. In the first room they shave and clean the skin whilst the dog is anaesthetised (they wouldn't let you do it if they were awake!)When all is ready he is wheeled into theatre for the vet to begin the operation. Routine op, goes home the same day, no problem.
The second op shown here is a different story. This dog was being castrated but with a twist. This little chap had a scrotal hernia and it was not an elective op but an urgent case with unsure consequences. You can see the enlarged size of his testicles, this is because they also contained 2 feet of intestine. Not normal. It had developed very quickly, in around 10 hours or so from initiation to theatre, 12 hours and it may have been too late. The intestines were strangulated (twisted) and necrotic (dead). Hugh removed the affected intestine length and reattached the 'good' ends together. He also performed a castration at the same time, securing the site so no more intestine could travel into the sack area in future. Two days later the dog walked out to his owner,fine! The recovery of dogs is amazing and this little guy was very lucky to have survived. This was due to the quick thinking of his owner who sought advice as soon as he noticed a problem. Good advice from The Animal House to owners is,'If in doubt don't hang about.' and, trust your own instincts, if you feel there's something not quite right have it looked at because you're probably right.
That's all for May, roll on June and look at our polo page to see what we're up to with all that. N.B. August 4th and 5th at Rugby Polo Club.