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Leah’s story

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The DC Ladies: Pet's- Leah's StoryThree weeks ago on a Friday morning, a one year old, eleven-pound Yorkie mix named Leah was rushed to Friendship in shock and near death.  She had been attacked by three large dogs while her owners were walking her in their neighborhood in Northeast DC.  The dogs had broken out of their fenced yard and were savagely attacking Leah as her owners and the dogs’ owner stood by unable to break up the fight.  A passing police officer stopped to help and unfortunately was forced to shoot one of the dogs in order to stop the attack.

Leah presented to us with severe wounds to her chest, abdomen and left rear leg.  Her owners expressed significant financial concerns when they learned how serious her condition was.  We initially thought that the bite wounds penetrated her abdomen and she would need an emergency exploratory surgery.  One of our amazing and generous clients happened to be in the lobby when the owners arrived and offered to donate money to help with Leah’s care.  Friendship stepped in and matched the donation with money from our Brudder-Sullivan fund.

She was started on intravenous fluids to address the shock, pain medication to make her more comfortable and antibiotics to prevent infection.  Luckily after multiple x-rays we determined the wounds did not enter her abdomen and emergency surgery was not needed.  She would need an extensive wound explore of her left leg and belly once she was stable for anesthesia.

Leah responded well to initial treatment and we put her under general anesthesia to assess the extent of her wounds Friday afternoon.  She had a small puncture wound on her abdomen where the left leg meets the belly.  This area was surrounded by a large dark purple bruise that extended down her left leg.  The puncture was opened up surgically to better allow us to visualize what was going on under the skin.  Underneath there was extensive damage to the muscles of her inner thigh and the connective tissue.  Additionally the femoral vein, which is the main blood supply to the leg, has a small tear and was leaking.

Given the tear in the femoral vein and how close to the damage the femoral artery was Leah was a lucky dog indeed.  If either of these important vessels had been torn during the attack she would have died almost instantly.  A special material called Vetspon was applied over the leaky femoral vein to help seal over the vessel.  We cleaned her wound thoroughly and packed them with an antimicrobial dressing.  Initially she needed daily bandages changes done under sedation while we waited to see what tissue is going die and need to be removed.

Over the next few days her red blood cell count and blood protein levels dropped due to loss through her wounds but she was eating well and seemed comfortable on her intravenous pain medications. During her bandage changes we were very happy with how her wound was looking although each day we needed to remove sections of muscle tissue that had started to die.  Despite all of this she was in good spirits and it was heartwarming to see her perk up when her owners came to visit her each day.

She was able to go home five days after the initial trauma and has returned every two to three days for bandages changes.  Now we are just waiting for the tissue to fill in the tennis ball sized defect that was left after all the damaged tissue had been removed.  It is a slow process but she is a trooper and comes in for each bandage change wagging her tail.  Given that she first arrived at the hospital just barely escaping death she is a very lucky little dog!

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