What a bloody close call

LAST week we left Charlie, the amiable but unlucky Boxer on the operating table.

We had monitored his heart murmur throughout the procedure. His external testicle had been removed uneventfully. The testicle that had been retained inside his abdomen had been located and dealt with.

His terribly pinched nostrils that made breathing so difficult and noisy had been surgically corrected. In essence, the job was done.

The anaesthetic was about to be turned off when a trickle of blood appeared at his left nostril.

Given the vascular nature of this area, it’s not unusual and no real cause for alarm. Simply packing the nostril with a swab for a few minutes generally does the job. So that’s what we did.

A short while later, with his ability to breathe improved immeasurably, Charlie was returned to his hospital kennel, where the ward nurse kept a careful eye on him.

He sneezed once and the bleeding started again. A small crowd gathered.

A nurse positioned his head on her knee. Another steadied him. I packed his nostril with a swab – a procedure he tolerated remarkably well for two reasons.

First, he is lovely. Second, he could breathe happily through only one nostril. Surely, again, job done.

But no. Forty-five minutes later, with the packing still in place and a nurse with pins and needles in her legs, I was summoned because there was a drip of blood from his scrotum. Then his abdominal wound began to ooze.

And then there was another sneeze and blood was spattered everywhere. Soon, it was all hands on deck to try and stop multiple haemorrhages. It looked like we were losing him but the cause was not clear.

I have talked about lungworm (Angiostrongylus vasorum) before. In our area, it is not a common condition and Charlie’s owner had sensibly treated him a week or so before his surgery.

But an in-house blood test proved positive for the parasite and explained his generalised bleeding.

It also reminded me that regular monthly treatment with either a tablet or spot-on is required to prevent it. The parasite is acquired through the ingestion of snails and a recent study at Glasgow University Vet School showed that about10 per cent of snails in our public parks are infected.

Happily, Charlie responded to treatment and is now well on the road to recovery. Maybe he was lucky after all.