The morning of May 2nd, I pulled in the parking lot at work and noticed a man pacing
around his vehicle like something was wrong. It was 7:15, so a little early for one of our patients to be showing up. As I got out of my car, he approached me and said his dog had been hurt. I told him I was going in through the back and to meet me at the front door and I would let him in to see what was going on. As I came in through the back, one of the other employees was already inside so he came to the front with me to let the man and his dog in.
After we got a look at the pet we realized it was Lola, a sweet, 6 year old beagle that is a regular patient at Rock Bridge Animal Hospital. Her owner said he and Lola went outside that morning around 5 and she took off running and before long he could hear a scuffle and noises coming from the direction of where she had gone. Pretty soon she came running back and went straight into the house and appeared to be in shock. Her owner noticed she had several different wounds on her body and knew Lola needed to be seen at the veterinarian’s office and headed to our hospital.
It was hard to tell if Lola had been attacked by a coyote or if she had been in a fight with a raccoon. Dr Forbes gave her a thorough evaluation and clipped around all of her wounds and cleaned them really well. The wounds were much deeper than they initially seemed, so X-rays were taken. There were no broken bones; however, there
was evidence that the wounds penetrated into the abdomen (Red arrow). Lola was immediately taken exploratory surgery to look for internal damage and to close the tears in her body wall. The bites had indeed penetrated her abdomen, but fortunately there was no damage to her intestines or other organs. The lacerations inside her abdomen were closed and drains were placed to allow any fluid build up to escape as these deep wounds healed. Lola stayed for observation to make sure she was doing ok and was later sent home with her family. She returned to us on May 6th to get the drains removed and for Dr Forbes to make sure she was on the way to a healthy recovery. We saw Lola again on May 17th to remove all of her sutures and her owners said she was doing very well at home.
It was a very traumatic experience, as you can see from the pictures, for Lola as well as for her owners. We are please to say that she is doing awesome today and is back to taking her morning walks.
Written by Kim
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