A grateful vet has praised the “brilliant” team here at Kentdale Referrals after we were able to successfully complete surgery to repair her puppy’s rare birth defect.
Lucy and Cameron Dickinson’s worst fears were confirmed when we carried out a CT scan on their young Labrador Callie, which revealed she had an uncommon condition called a persistent right aortic arch.
As a vet, Lucy knew all the risks and complications of Callie’s case and could barely believe the puppy she had hand-reared from day one was facing another fight to survive.
Lucy, from Kirkby Stephen, explained: “We took Callie on when she was just 24 hours old after her mum and the rest of her littermates died.
“We hand-reared her ourselves, feeding her every couple of hours around the clock for the first few weeks of her life.
“When we started weaning her onto solid food at a few months old we noticed she was regurgitating the food and unable to keep it down, which raised suspicion.
“As a vet myself, I was suspicious of a vascular ring anomaly because she was pretty much a textbook presentation of it, but, as it’s so rare, I just thought I was being paranoid.
“I couldn’t really believe we would be unlucky enough to have that as the cause of the problem, seeing as she had already had such a tough start in life already!
“I was pretty concerned when the CT scans confirmed it all, as I knew it required major surgery, and we didn’t know how good the prognosis would be afterwards.
“Kentdale Specialist Jan reassured us, though. He explained the risks associated with the surgery and possible outcomes really well and I knew then that she was in the best hands, which really did lessen our worry.”
Jan Beranek, Specialist in Small Animal Surgery here at Kentdale, took charge of the challenging operation, assisted by Chris Allen, Advanced Practitioner in Small Animal Surgery.
He described Callie’s problem, saying: “She was born with the aorta leaving the heart on the right side ( normal is left), which trapped her food pipe between big vessels above the heart and the ligament spread between them.
“As Callie grew, this had caused a restriction around the oesophagus (food pipe) and she was struggling to eat and swallow her food.
“The food just cannot get past the narrow section of the oesophagus so causes repeated regurgitation and means the puppy does not get the nutrients it needs to grow.
“To rectify this, we performed a thoracotomy (opening of the chest) to access the problematic ligament and ligate (tie) it and then remove it from around the oesophagus.
“Surgery took two hours and went very well with Callie going home the very next day.
“For the next four weeks post-surgery, she needed to have just small volumes of soft food several times a day, utilising a food bowl that encourages a slower speed when eating.
“All has gone well and she has made a full recovery and is eating and drinking normally now.”
Owner Lucy, who works for a veterinary pharmaceutical firm, added: “We’re so grateful. Kentdale were brilliant from start to finish. The communication was amazing and I would certainly recommend them, 100 per cent without any hesitation.”
We are one of the UK’s leading Specialist Orthopaedic, Spinal and Soft Tissue small animal referral centres.