Suck it up … a tumour-depleted Patch has a post-operative check-up with Professor Geraldine Hunt, centre, and assistants Nina Lorenz and Natasha Burton.
Photo: Bob Pearce
Posted on 07/21/2006 1:34:30 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
PATCH is not all the dog he used to be. After having two kilograms of fat sucked from his body, the 12-year-old kelpie cross is "like new", says his delighted owner, Irene Williams.
Patch is believed to be the first dog in Australia to have undergone liposuction, an increasingly popular operation for overweight humans.
His problem was not obesity, but fatty tumours. One, on his left hind leg, was so large it was threatening to cripple him within months. "To see him degenerate was tearing at my heartstrings," Ms Williams said.
Advised that radical surgery was the only option, she decided she would have him put down.
Then Geraldine Hunt, an associate professor at Sydney University's veterinary centre and a specialist in small-animal surgery, suggested liposuction.
Human liposuction instruments are very expensive, but Professor Hunt remembered a European vet who performed the procedure on a dog using the suction tool normally used to clean up fluids during surgery.
Ms Williams, from Burwood, agreed to let Professor Hunt give it a go. During the hour-long operation, six fatty tumours were sucked from Patch.
"We took about two kilograms of fat, 10 per cent of his body weight," Professor Hunt said.
The next morning Patch was up and walking. "He is so playful, so happy now," Ms Williams said.
"He romps through the house like a circus pony," she said, adding that the $1500 cost was money well spent. "What price do you put on love?"
While Professor Hunt doubts the procedure will become an alternative to dieting and exercise for overweight pets, she said it was an example of how human treatments were becoming common for animals.
"Chemotherapy and radiation therapy for treating cancers, that's quite routine now," she said. "We do brain operations from time to time, we remove cancerous tumours from dogs and cats and we do open-heart operations to fix obstructions and valve problems.
"We do blood transfusions every week, and have a [dog] blood donor program."
Her university clinic is planning to spend $2 million buying a magnetic resonance imaging machine and a CT scanner to diagnose everything from brain diseases to slipped discs and arthritis.
Professor Hunt said it was not the technology that was new, but the attitude of pet owners.
"What is changing is the owner's willingness to pursue diagnostic procedures. They say: 'If I'm sick, this is what I'd have done and I wouldn't hesitate, so why should I hesitate for my pet?"'
Professor Hunt believed many pet owners had previously been reluctant to put their pets through major procedures, such as cancer operations, after watching relatives suffer through similar ordeals.
Progress in human medicine made people rethink what was possible for their pets.
It was no longer unusual for owners to spend $3000. "Most people pay out of their pockets, from savings, or they'll get a loan."
Doggie ping?
Suck it up … a tumour-depleted Patch has a post-operative check-up with Professor Geraldine Hunt, centre, and assistants Nina Lorenz and Natasha Burton.
Photo: Bob Pearce
This operation on the dog was NOT cosmetic. If my dogs needed this kind of surgery at this time of their lives (one is 7 and one is 4) I would pay the $3000 for this operation.
Did I say it was cosmetic? My only consideration would be the age of the dog. But I do not know the life expectancy of this breed. 12 is getting up there for most dogs.
And his owner is likely to continue to overfeed and underexercise him.
Oh "Patch."
Thought it was a story about that RI Kennedy representative getting lie-brosuction, and he disappeared..
That dog's got better healthcare than I do.
LOL...I thought the same thing, except that it said 'liversuction'.
From the article:
His problem was not obesity, but fatty tumours.Emphasis mine.
"This operation on the dog was NOT cosmetic. If my dogs needed this kind of surgery at this time of their lives (one is 7 and one is 4) I would pay the $3000 for this operation.
We dog owners and dog lovers would do that. The rest would not understand.
They would if they had someone who overflowed with enthusiasm whenever they came home and forgave them everything they ever did to hurt, even stepping on a paw. :-)
So it wasn't just me thinkin' that ...
Is there a freeper word for "drive by posters" who post without reading the article? Just curious. Thanks for reposting what should have been read the first time.
Thank you, Bob.
LOL, me too!
Except, maybe, the pickled liver.
Nahh, I don't think so. It's really easy to miss a specific point in an article. That happens all the time.
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