Life Saving Procedures for Rip the Puppy

by Dr. Deckard, DVM, Pets R Family

It’s a quiet Wednesday morning at the veterinary hospital. We have had our morning meeting to discuss plans for the day and had a great couple of hours with routine appointments. Suddenly Rip, a 13 week old German Shorthair puppy, was rushed into the back, limp and with pale gums, but was responsive. All staff got involved getting vitals as the doctors teamed up to decide what tests needed to be run and help stabilize him. Meanwhile, a technician rushed up front to collect a good history that hopefully would give some clues as to what could be wrong with the puppy.

Rip was obtained from a breeder and had been to a local vet for initial examination, deworming and vaccines. The puppy had been completely normal up until that day. The weekend prior, he had been in North Carolina where he was able to have the best time of his life on a big piece of property with a lake nearby. During his stay he was found eating many things both on land and near the water. This added the potential for toxin ingestion or infectious parasites/viruses as possibilities.

A full panel of bloodwork was run which showed that he was profoundly anemic at 6% (normal is 35-50%). This was a number incompatible with life. The rest of the bloodwork was normal. The next list of things to rule out were a bleeding disorder, metal toxicity (such as lead ingestion), autoimmune problem, tick disease and intestinal parasites. Regardless of the cause, the degree of anemia meant that we needed to perform a life saving blood transfusion as soon as possible. After blood typing and a cross match, Rip received a generous donation of blood from one of our doctor’s dogs named Beu, which made him immediately feel better.

Subsequent tests that were done revealed no answers as to what was causing his problem. Several tests were sent to the lab that would be available in a few days. Rip felt well enough to go home that night and needed to return the following morning for a recheck. On Thursday morning, he needed another transfusion because his anemia was still a major problem.

After several more transfusions, a trip to the ER followed by a trip to an internal medicine doctor, Rip finally started to make his own red blood cells without destroying them. His tests revealed that he had an autoimmune problem that caused him to destroy his own red blood cells. He was prescribed immunosuppressant drugs to help his body fight the disorder and after 2 weeks, he was back to being a puppy again.

We don’t know exactly what caused his body to attack itself, however, we are very fortunate that his initial emergency treatment along with his ongoing treatments saved his life. Rip’s treatments and close monitoring will be continued for a few months before he will be weaned off the medications and see how he does. Rip was one lucky dog to have such a loving family that was able to provide the best care to save his life. It is so rewarding for our team to be a part of Rip’s miraculous recovery.