Vaginal Hyperplasia

One of my clients called me the other day and told me that his dog was on time for delivery and looked like the fetus has came out half way and stucked in the middle. I quickly rushed to his house to have a look. I was a little skeptical as he didn't mention anything about his dog being mated before. Anyway, I've promised him to have a look and there I went.

To my surprise, the dog wasn't delivering as what my client have told me. It was a case of vaginal prolapse, or more convincingly vaginal hyperplasia causing the vagina to prolapse. There wasn't any puppies in the uterus as I couldn't palpate any. It was a labrador and most of the time, a labrador might gave birth to at 7 - 8 puppies in a batch.

The occurence of vaginal hyperplasia is usualy under the influence of the hormone estrogen. Estrogen can cause the vaginal wall to become edematous and swell, thus, making it large enough to protrude outside the vulvar lips. Some people may prefer the words "vaginal edema" rather than vaginal hyperplasia because it does not involved a true organ prolapse or hyperplasia of the vagina.

Treatment depends on the stage of estrus, extend of the fold prolapse, whether it's a breeding bitch or whether the dog is pregnant. In this case, the dog was not pregnant nor was it on heat. It was a puzzle for us as to why this condition has occured in a non pregnant, non-estrus bitch. Further check on the blood revealed "band neutrophil", a condition of the white blood cell, neutrophil indicating toxic changes in the body. And, in the bitch, it is highly suggestive of "pyometra", an infective and inflammative condition of the uterus. And, true enough, ultrasound diagnosis revealed the dog was having pyometra and the possibility of cystic ovaries.

The best treatment for pyometra is to remove the entire uterus and the ovaries together so that the dog can be saved immediately. A pyometra has always being regarded as a "time bomb" as it can rupture anytime if the swelling was large enough. So, there we went, into the surgical room. The dog has 2 problems to be solved - a pyometra and vaginal hypreplasia.

Upon opening up the abdominal cavity, the first organ I saw was the enlarged uterus. We have to remove the entire uterus as it was too risky to leave it because it was so big! Look at my hand and compare it to the size of the uterus.

After we have removed the pyometral uterus, we proceeded with the removal of the prolapse vagina.

After the prolapse vagina has been removed, the remaining stump was sutured and put back in place. The dog was saved from pyometra which can cause death if not treated.

This case was very special because the vaginal hyperplasia was probably due to the hormonal effect caused by the cystic ovaries. Most literature stated that vaginal hyperplasia occurs during estrus or at the end of pregnancy. And, I treasured very much the experience of seeing a vaginal hyperplasia out of the "norm".

A Cherry In The Eye?

"Cherry eye" is a common term used to indicate the prolapse or protrusion of the canine third eyelid gland which is situated at the medial aspect of the eye. The condition occurs more commonly in dogs than cats. Usually, you can see a reddish colored mass coming out from the medial aspect of the eye i.e. the term "cherry eye". It may be caused by a hereditary weakness in the connective tissues surrounding the gland. It is most common in puppies.

The main purpose of the gland is to produce tears to lubricate the eye (up to 30% of tears). And, because of that, cherry eye can expose the eye to dryness which may lead to "dry eye" (keratoconjunctivitis sicca). This is particularly true if the third eyelid glands were being removed as it was with the older treatment method. So folks, do not remove your dog's third eyelid gland if it has cherry eye as there are other treatment options which are much more better. The modern method of cherry eye treatment involves repositioning the gland to its normal position. The success rate of this treatment is up to 80% in most breeds.

An Eyeless Puppy

A few years ago I got a rarely happening case where a Poodle puppy was born without eyes! Yes folks, without eyes. I have never seen one naturally although we have studied it before. I treasured very much this case as not everyone have the opportunity to witness it. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure.

I Can Swallow Whatever I Want 3 : The Durian Season.

Hi folks, it's durian season again. A lot of you must be avid durian lover. Same as this dog here. He just loooove durian. He's an English Cocker Spaniel and lives with a durian crazy family. But, unfortunately it wasn't a pretty experience the last time he swallowed a durian with its seed, that's without the owner's knowledge . It happened last week. The clinical signs? Vomit, vomit and vomit whatever he took in. Otherwise, the dog looked healthy.

We did an ultrasound scanning to diagnose the problem. And, sure enough the durian seed was there, inside the small intestine.

So, we decided to carry out surgery to take out the durian seed. Mind you that we do not perform surgery in every durian swallowing case. In some cases, the dog actually vomitted out the seed after several days.

This was the small intestine where the seed got stucked in.

We put so called "stay sutures" at both ends of the intestine where the seed was for easier manipulation during surgery. The instestine was later cut to release the seed.

The seed was removed and later the intestine was sutured back by using absorbable suture. The intestine is full of actively dividing cells. It will heal very fast in fact in just 2 to 3 days time. Usually, we will use fast absorbing sutures to close the wound.

And, finally the durian seed was removed. It was about 4.5cm in length.

By the way, readers are welcome to make any comments or maybe share your cases. Thanks.

I Can Swallow Whatever I Want 2

Hi folks! It's swallowing act again. But this time, it's a stapler wire!

This time, it's really hard to find such a tiny object in such a long intestine! We had to thoroughly search the entire intestine (small & large) to finally managed to find it.

Taking the stapler wire out was not a problem at all. Most of the time wasted was due to the search.













There's another case where a poodle swallowed a .....ehem.....condom which I didn't got the chance to take any photos because unluckily I forgot to bring my camera on that special day. Apparently, the owner did not throw the condom "properly" after use and the dog, I guess found it on the floor. Hmmm....I wonder what flavour it was that tempting the dog to swallow it.


I'll post more interesting swallowing act next time. Do come back for more. Thanks.

By the way, please throw used condom properly in case you have a garbage eater in your house, hihi.

I Can Swallow Whatever I Want!

My oh my! If you think that only magicians can perform knife swallowing tricks, wait until you see this. It's rather amazing what dogs can do with their curiosity. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a "Neeeeeedle swallowing Pekingese"!

A pekingese was brought to us by a lovely couple a few weeks back. The lady owner did not actually see the dog swallowed the needle precisely. She got to know about it when one of her needles went missing after she left it on the sofa. As you can see from the x-rays above and below, the needle was right inside the stomach. And, it all happened 2 days before her wedding day!

We have no choice but to operate on the dog to remove the needle failing which might cause more harm to the dog. We were very concern about the needle going through the stomach wall and causing more injuries to other internal organs such as the liver and kidney. If it does "travels", then, it might be harder for us to find it. We have to do it and do it quickly.

The surgery was quite straight forward. We were surprised to find out that a thread was attached to the needle.

The needle was about 4cm long! Hmmm... how did a dog with a small mouth swallowed such a long needle, with a thread somemore?

Bad bad doggy!