Not your typical Thanksgiving dinner

11月25日

Not your typical Thanksgiving dinner

Warning: Although this post does not have a sad ending (in fact the story is not complete yet), it does have some rather graphic details which those of you with a weak stomach may not appreciate….

Bentley’s owners adopted her a couple of months ago – she’s just about the cutest 4 month old Lab/Boxer mix you’d want to meet. A young couple with their first pup, her ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ were taking good care of her and had her vaccinated, and on Tuesday this week had her spayed. They stayed home with her on Wednesday, and were keeping her in her crate. They left for one hour Wednesday evening, and her ‘dad’ came home to a very nasty surprise.

Bentley’s spay incision had opened up. Intestines were spilling out of her belly onto the cage floor, their apartment was a blood bath, and Bentley was very ill.

Ok, I’m a vet. I’ve seen things like this before. But I just cannot imagine coming home to this scene involving my own beloved puppy.

They rushed her to our clinic. She was triaged directly to the treatment room, and I dropped everything else. It was a pretty busy night, and luckily we had some very understanding clients with other more stable pets who were forced to wait a long time – I hope they know how much we appreciated their patience.

Bentley was very shocky – her membranes were white instead of pink, her heartrate was over 220 beats per minutes (way too high), and I could not feel the pulses in her legs because her blood pressure was so low. We threw an IV catheter into a vein in her front leg, started some fluids (called hetastarch) to try to get her blood pressure up, gave her some pain meds, and went about assessing the damage.

Ugh. She had a good portion of her intestinal tract hanging out of her spay incision. Some of the intestines had clearly been chewed – in one place they had been chewed apart (and I had no way to know how much was missing), several other places had holes chewed in them, parts of the rest were swollen and red, parts were dark and dying. We quickly tried to wrap them up with sterile dressings while we stabilized her for surgery.

[Here’s the theory as to why dogs chew their own intestines in a situation like this – it hurts, so they chew it to try to get rid of it. Their brains don’t put together the fact that they look down, see guts, and say to themselves, "Hmm, those are my guts, so I better not chew on them." And they don’t associate the pain from biting them with the fact that they are causing the pain to themselves.]

This was bad, and I quickly spoke to her people – if there was enough intestine left, and if she could get through the needed emergency surgery, and if she could fight off any inevitable infections, she could survive – she had youth on her side (puppies are amazing sometimes). They wanted us to try to save her.

We took her to surgery. She had feces all over her exposed bowel (feces on the outside of the bowel is never a good thing), and I removed 2 feet of damaged and dead intestine. The parts of the bowel I put back together (this is called an intestinal resection and anastomosis, or R&A) appeared red and swollen but I believe they were viable. It was a judgement call, but if I removed all the swollen, red bowel, she would not have had enough left to lead a normal life. She could have easily been left with something called ‘short bowel syndrome’ – causing chronic diarrhea and poor absorption of nutrients the rest of her life.

Well, we are now just over 24 hours out from surgery. Bentley is very stable, and has been getting fed a liquid diet for just over 12 hours – no fever or vomiting so far, good attitude and activity (actually, she is too active, so as usual we are spoiling her rotten). Keep your fingers crossed. Intestinal R&A’s must be watched carefully for 3-5 days – the anastomosis site can break down, and if that were to happen we would be in big trouble again.

I’ll post back as Bentley’s recovery goes along. And hopefully, she’ll get to celebrate a belated Thanksgiving with her mom and dad in a few days (but no table food, please!).

2:04 | 写入日志

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	Kristin Stressman 发表: Did Bently survive? I recently became a new mom to a 3 month old St Bernard, her new Mom and Dad lover her to peices and spoil her rotten. I am so glad she finally found us. 4 月 11 日
	ergeek42 发表: Sorry for the delay (went out of town to visit the parental units). Bentley is doing well! The only problem in her recovery has been keeping her quiet. Always a challenge with the puppies. We will see her back this weekend to get her staples out. I hope I am working when she comes in - it's always great to see a happy puppy. Nancy, you are absolutely right about the e-collar - the owners know and I did not make a big deal out of it at the time, as they did feel guilty enough. Bentley's activity level (even in her cage) could have contributed to her problem as well. Of course, Bentley went home with a collar this time (reinforced with duct tape). Susan 11 月 30 日
	Karissa 发表: I fear that the long delay between posts does not bode well for this little pooch. I can only hope that her recovery went well and uneventfully and that you're just not updating us because you're swamped. Do let us know how she's doing as soon as you can. I love to read your blog. Brings back many memories of my past vet tech work, some good some not so good. Take care and God bless you. 11 月 30 日
	Incommunicado 发表: If you haven't made any mention of Bentley's intestines spilling out and all, i would have assumed she was one contented happy pup that just went for some minor surgery. You did a brilliant job stitching her back! :) From the looks of it, she's doing well. Good luck. 11 月 30 日
	hilabug 发表: Bentley is the cutest puppy! I hope she makes it, it would be so hard for the parents to lose her this young. I am glad you are writing again, I check your blog all of the time! 11 月 29 日
	TokenBabe1 发表: Susan: You are all truly amazing! I hope nobody that had a stable pet and had to wait gave you a hard time. We've been in that situation (dying animal, other animals there loooong before us) and for others just to say, "it's okay, we know how you feel.." must have been a huge relief to Bentley's parents. Please keep me/us posted. Thanks for the pictures, too. What a mushy-face he is. Angie Barr 11 月 29 日
	litlev6 发表: I gasped when I read what Bentley dad found when he got home. I am a tuff old gal who has been around a lot of animals some pets some work animals but I can not even think of how I would of reacted to that. I hope all comes out ok for that little family. They were very lucky to have you and your team. Good Job and Good Luck with Bentley you have done all you can do it's kind of in a higher hand now.. 11 月 27 日
	Eddie_9_1_1 发表: OMG! I hope everything works out for the little fellow. That had to be horrible to come home too. Good to see you back again :) Enjoy reading your post. Eddie 11 月 26 日
	thewired1 发表: Poor Bentley and her parents. Hoping that everything ends happily... Wendy 11 月 26 日
	Nancy Campbell 发表: What a frightening experience for the owners and Bentley. I can only image their horror. This is one of those situations that I feel very bad for the owners and yet I also understand that it was preventable. I would NEVER express this to the owners at this point since they probably are already feeling terrible guilt just because they left her alone. Buster collars, aka Elizabethan collars, E-Collars, those funny lookin' lampshades. Pets hate them, owners hate them more. I had a veterinarian cure me of feeling sorry for pets that had to wear them right after surgery when he told me an extremely similar story to Bentley's. That dog didn't survive. An E-collar, tied on snuggly can save a pets life. I spend a lot of time explaining to owners that dogs can eat, drink, pee and poop with them. That they'll learn to navigate with them so they're not banging on the walls and doors when they walk in a fairly short time. They tell me of the pathetic look their pet gives them that breaks their heart so they take it off. I can't tell you how many tell me that they thought it would be GOOD for the suture site to be licked constantly by their pet. That their saliva has magical healing powers so they allowed them to lick and chew to their hearts content. Then when they bring their pet back in with broken sutures, open wounds and torn off bandages they understand. The only pet owners we've had almost no difficulty conveying the importance of using a buster collar is if they spend thousands of dollars on eye surgery or a TPLO. They're ugly, a royal pain in the neck and just plain inconvenient, but if an owner can't watch their pet then it needs to be utilized. I hope and pray that Bentley recovers to romp and play with her people for many years to come. I am so happy that you were able to save Bentley's life (though it's hard to type with fingers crossed). Well done, doc! Thank you for being there for Bentley and her people. 11 月 25 日
	Sue 发表: Oh my goodness! I can't imagine! I had a situation once when I had my three pits. The dogs had managed to get out in the middle of the night and I woke to someone knocking at my door at 1am. When I finally got my dogs corralled back to the house, Ali'i just laid himself on the grass. And he wasn't making any effort to come into the house. So, with a little coaxing, I got him into the house. When he finally came inside, he went to go lay down and I saw this HUGE gash from his genetalia area to his mid stomach area. I couldn't figure out what would cause such a thing. So throughout the night, I would clean the wound and keep it covered. Ali'i was a VERY active pit. He was a jumper. I'd gone to Petsmart and bought some Corona, the horse's antibiotic cream and applied that to his stomach. For the next few days I watched him carefully to see how he would do. For the first day, he was very gentle in everything he did. And then as the days passed and his wounds healed, he went back to his natural self. Thank God for dogs and their youth. 11 月 25 日

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