He presented a Boston Terrier with constipation for the past 3 weeks. He went to Vet 1 who referred him to another vet after taking a blood test as she did not want to perform the surgery. She had given him a laxative for the dog and the dog had passed loose stools instead of hard ones.
"Why don't you see the referred vet?" I asked.
"The Surgery had a bad reputation," he had googled the name of the practice and there was a nasty complaint from one dog owner.
"All practices will have one or two bad complaints about service," I said. "The busier the practice, the higher the chances of getting complaints as the vet may have no time to handle each case. This applies to over-worked doctors in human medicine too especially in the emergency wards."
"Has your dog been vaccinated?" I asked.
"No vaccination for the past few years. Do you have parvovirus in your Surgery?" the young man asked me.
"Fortunately for your dog, my practice does not have parvo-viral cases for many months as I seldom provide service to the dog breeders nowadays. You have taken a big risk exposing your dog the risk of parvoviral and canine distemper infections."
PRE-OP BLOOD TEST IMPORTANT FOR OLD DOGS BEFORE SURGERY
I checked Vet 1's blood test results. It is wise not to trust the blood results of other practices based on one of my experiences (see one case I had written). However, he had paid $130 for the test and I would not insist as that would increase his vet bills. Overall, the dog was examined and was healthy. So I took the chance.
ANAESTHESIA
Domitor and isoflurane gas was OK. The dog recovered smoothly.
SURGERY
I gave him antibiotics to take and schedule perineal hernia surgery 2 days later. The surgery took nearly an hour as the hernia was large.
CONCLUSION
The dog was OK and was warded for at least 4 days as the owner did not have a crate to prevent the dog running loose. I checked the dog every day to ensure that he had proper nursing care and pain-killers. The boy's parents came to visit the dog yesterday. The dog should be back home after 7 days. He had managed to rub his backside onto the floor of the crate despite tolfedine 60 mg at half a tablet per day for 3 days. I decided to give him 1/4 dose of a 30mg phenobarb and then rimadyrl for another 3 days to prevent pain and inflammation.
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