Dog born with extra parts doing well after surgery

Faith, a Chihuahua mix puppy, was a mess.

The little dog showed up in the veterinary office of Dr. Steven Neihaus in July.

Undersized at about two pounds, Faith had been the runt of the litter when born two months earlier.

She came into the world with two tails, two vulvas, two urinary bladders, two colons and four ovaries.

With time, those extra parts were causing problems such as recurring urinary tract infections.

“As she grew, things were getting weird,” said Neihaus, 37, with Capital Veterinary Specialists in Jacksonville.

The extremely rare congenital condition is called “caudal duplication.”

“There’s only a few reports of animals surviving with this condition,” Neihaus said.

Surgery was the inevitable option after a lengthy discussion with the dog’s owner. But it wasn’t going to be easy. Nothing in Neihaus’ professional past or in veterinary college at the University of Illinois had prepared him for a complicated operation which would remove Faith’s extra – and impeding — body parts.

The late-July surgery lasted about two hours.

Neihaus removed one urinary bladder while re-routing the ureter (a duct by which urine passes from the kidney to the bladder) to the remaining bladder. He then removed four ovaries, the extra colon, one vulva, one anus and both tails.

After the procedure, Faith was buttoned Faith, a Chihuahua mix, was born with a rare condition that results in duplicate body parts. up and sent to recovery. Fast forward three weeks. “So far she has good energy and is eating and growing,” Neihaus said by telephone Monday.

“My hope is that she will be a pretty normal dog in the long term.”

To make the ordeal less painful for Faith’s owner, Capital Veterinary Specialists helped out with some of the medical costs, which Neihaus estimates at $5,000 or more.

The once-in-a-career case, however, was priceless for him.

“The culmination of everything I’ve trained for was applied in one instance.”