Loss of dog rant

[Nasicus]

As a person beset by Stupid Incidents, I'll just burble out a few thoughts.

I never leave a dog unsupervised with an item I think (the individual dog) is capable of swallowing. This may involve doing sweeps of garden and kennels. If I know them to have swallowed something that could cause a blockage or strangulation, and this has happened a couple of times, I take them to the vet for the vomiting jab.

I knew that one of my dogs had eaten most of a drinks can a few years back so rushed him to the vets for x-rays, they said they found nothing. He shat out shards of metal days later with apparently no ill effects. This dog also chewed up and swallowed a tennis ball and it took weeks and months to come out and caused huge, seemingly un-resolvable problems for him. He was back and forth to the vets for months, I do not ever let my dogs have tennis balls and I had no idea he had even picked it up, I still don't know where he got it from, only that there were bits of rubber which tally with a tennis ball, coming from both ends.

The worst thing one of my dogs has eaten were two pairs of balled up tights, which untangled and twisted around her guts. That involved a big surgery and she lived for another three years (she was 11 at the time).

My older dog, who is a Grade A, five star, top drawer, first class knobhead ate the entire handle of a flexi leash at around the same time (I was distracted and didn't realised it had dropped from under my arm into his bedding, so made no noise), with no ill effects at all. He was pooping bits of rubber and screws for weeks. It was way too late for the jab, I kept an eye on him, he was eating, drinking and passing stools as normal.

My friend's young pup ate the electronics box under the seat of his van over ten days ago. She was off her food and then had the runs and after that, he thought she was fine. After shouting at him for leaving her alone in the front of the vehicle when he has a set of very expensive boxes in the back, the first thing I said was that he should have gone straight to the vets for the vomiting jag. Last night, she had bad V&D and was refusing food. I hope it is unconnected, but I don't think a load of wiring in her stomach is going to be very pleasant for her.

Relative is a Vet Nurse and they had a puppy come in that had swallowed a plastic toy arrow, so thankfully a suction cup end instead of anything sharp. Impressive part was, it was about as long as your forearm and the dog had managed to swallow most of it with a few inches sticking sticking out it's mouth, intact! I saw the Xray, it was like a puppy kebab, yet through some miracle it had done no damage what so ever, and the operation to remove it was a very straight forward, careful removal back out the way it went in.

 

[JBM]

OP, you sound quite young. As you go through life you will gain more experience and learn more things and you may probably take a slightly different view of the world, there will be dogs in your life for a short time and dogs in your life for a long time. We have be as vigilant as we can and we also have to entrust the health of our animals to the best vets that we can afford and accept that not everything will always go the way that we expect it to, or else we all need to become vets and carry out all the procedures ourselves, just to be sure.

They’re not the vets I would’ve chosen myself but closest and owner chose so not my decision to make.
I am early twenties but I don’t see my sensitive nature subsiding any over time I expect I will always take moments like this hard and I’m ok with that
The feelings I have now about the situation may not be the same in a week but it’s still fresh

 

[JBM]

Just wanted to say I appreciate everyone who took the time to reply to my rant

 

[nagblagger]

Any loss of a pet is awful, especially a young one.. i would write for an explanation of why the rope was missed, why you couldn't see her and what actually happened, then ask how they are going to avoid a similar incident. Hopefully you can be reassured lessons have been learnt from this tragedy.

 

[Cortez]

Any loss of a pet is awful, especially a young one.. i would write for an explanation of why the rope was missed, why you couldn't see her and what actually happened, then ask how they are going to avoid a similar incident. Hopefully you can be reassured lessons have been learnt from this tragedy.

Why? I'm very sure they didn't deliberately do any of the things that happened, and any vet will be analysing the outcome thoroughly. It serves no purpose other than spite.

 

[nagblagger]

No spite would be suing and going public, this is between them.

 

[Cortez]

No spite would be suing and going public, this is between them.

Suing would be stupid, because there is no case. I don't get what you think the point of an explanation is: it's obvious, and has been very well outlined above by people who know how vets work. Very sad outcome, but not unheard of in this kind of surgery.

 

[nagblagger]

It may give closure to the owners and JBM.

 

[Redders]

Suing won’t do that. Asking the vets involved to discuss what happened with them so they can understand properly may do that - that’s what I suggest they do once they have had some time to process things so they can take it in. I’m always happy to do that. It’s not a complaint but asking for clarity to aid grieving process

 

[Christmascinnamoncookie]

Horrible experience. I’m very sorry.

 

[Boulty]

I’d say if this is something you & your friend feel strongly about then write a letter to the practice laying out your concerns in the hopes of it triggering an investigation/ policy change eg reevaluation of their visiting policy, changes in how they monitor this type of surgery post op etc. Keep it civil but if you’ve got concerns & questions then you are entitled to voice them.

Re the surgery itself unfortunately intestinal surgery is always at high risk of break down and complications, especially with what’s called a linear foreign body which a rope toy may classify as (basically anything that forms a long strand and can cause the gut to become corrugated, compromising its blood supply). Sometimes compromised gut will appear to come back to life after the obstruction is removed and blood supply returns & sometimes it is already necrotic and needs removing. There’s only so much gut you can safely remove so you really don’t want to take any out that can be saved. Anyhow the problems occur either when something that looked viable turns out not to be and starts to die a few days later or when you get breakdown of the sutures (& this is a greater risk if you’ve had to remove some gut as you’re asking two severed pieces to heal completely onto each other) and then you can get leakage into the abdomen. Basically it’s always a high risk surgery and you do need a bit of luck on your side for it to heal well without complications unfortunately, (& a lot of dogs will be quite unwell for several days after even if all has gone well) although of course the signs of something going wrong should be carefully monitored for.

 

[Umbongo]

I am so sorry to hear about your relatives dog.

As people have previously said, ex-lap surgeries come with huge risks such as necrosis, wound break-down and peritonitis. Sometimes we don't know until a few days after surgery. Even young, healthy animals can get these complications. I think that so many dogs have foreign body surgery, that it has become normalised and it's easy to forget that these are actually major surgeries and not all patients make it. The vet should inform the owner of this, and that the next few days after the surgery can be the most dangerous. If infection in the abdomen was already present when they went back in the 2nd time, I am not sure the outcome may have been any different....regardless if all the rope toy was fully removed or not.

I have worked in some practices that either only allow the registered owner to visit, or advise against visiting at all if the patient becomes very stressed once the owners leave (as high stress levels can delay wound healing).

Obviously we do not know the full detailed story, and it is a very upsetting outcome for everyone involved. I think if your relative wants to, they should contact the practice either in writing or in person in order to get some clarity on the situation. If the practice have made any mistakes, then perhaps they can put in some protocols to help prevent it from happening again in the future. For example them saying that you could not visit because he whined last time, maybe their reception team could benefit with further training so they can explain why visiting may be inadvisable etc.