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Saving Jasper Rescue no 2008-017
Jasper, a young and quite large Irish Setter was handed into Wood Green Animal Shelter on 20th February 2008 because of a reported relationship breakdown in his first home. The vets initial assessment described him ˜as very scared and easily panicked with a warm festering smell" and incredibly underweight at just 28.5 kgs. Jasper was allocated a dedicated nurse to help bring him round and build his confidence while numerous tests were carried out to check for any underlying health problems, fortunately none were found. The Wood Green staff did a superb job in quickly restoring Jasper's poise, his case notes just three weeks later confirmed him doing well in him self, really confident and no longer the nervous wreck he was when he first arrived, he had also lost the offensive smell. Wood Green staff still had concerns about his low weight, now 28.45 kgs, and came to the conclusion that kennelling itself could be stressing him with fretting preventing any real weight gain. Consequently they contacted Barbara Rogers to see if a suitable home could be quickly found through the ISBC Rescue Scheme.
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| This is where we came in, because
Barbara already had us on her rehoming list. We already have two
very different dogs from the Rescue Scheme - a Pointer/Setter
cross (Red) and a very small and fast (Springer Spaniel-sized)
Irish Setter from the working side of the breed (Benji). We only
live ten miles away from Wood Green so Jasper was very easy for
us to see, but we did have some reservations about taking on a
large male dog, thinking that a small bitch might have been a
better prospect. So we were prepared to make a very sensible,
sober decision to not take him on ourselves, but just go there
to take photos and get some background details to place him on
the ISBC Rescue Web-pages.
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| So much for sensible
sober decisions. What actually happened was that we fell for
Jasper straight away. We could see that he was a very friendly,
easy going guy, and quite happy in the company of our two. They
were not bothered by him either, and as he didn't pull on the
lead (the other two will do!), this meant that just one of us
could walk all three dogs without any problems. So Jasper joined
the pack on March 9th, very obviously happy from the start and
making himself quite at home. To celebrate his arrival, the very
first thing he did was take a small plastic flowerpot from the
garden, playfully emptying the compost in a wide arc across the
living room floor. Settling the Setters was straight forward,
the only issue being some unprovoked jealousy attacks from Benji,
a feisty little character at times. Over a couple of weeks the
animosity spats gave way to play fights, where their extreme
contrast in size made for an unconventional judo technique.
Small Setter stands under Mahogany Monster, bites hind leg and
pulls away from directly underneath! We took Jasper to meet some
other family dogs, where he mixed in easily. While happy in
himself Jasper still needed some serious grooming as he had
several large fur matts behind his ears and underside. These
took an hour or so to carefully trim out. We had him
microchipped, and Barbara was able to confirm he had just turned
two from checking back on the breeder's ear tattoo. Jasper
proved very friendly if excitable with visitors, and he was
making good progress with a steady weight gain, now up to 30 kgs.
He then had a minor episode of haemorrhagic diarrhoea. We fixed
up a vets appointment to get some antibiotics, and having seen
the condition before we knew to watch for any sudden decline and
to get help urgently. So we were now on a high alert state -
if in doubt act.
Thursday, 10th April. 11.30, and way past our bedtime. Unusually Jasper had stayed upstairs, not going outside with the other two. We could so easily have ignored this and just gone to bed, but he was led downstairs after not responding to calls. Clearly he was unhappy, not his usual active bouncy self. Just staying low to the ground and murmuring. This odd behaviour turned to major concern as he started biting when probed around his sides. So whatever this was he was in distress and time was of the essence. We rang the vets, got a taped message referring us to the emergency service. We then discussed his symptoms over the phone, unconcerned about the out of hours fee - just anxious to get him examined. Although Jasper was uncomfortable luckily he was still able to get in and out of the car, and was walked on the lead into the clinic. Within half an hour of first spotting the problem, he was being examined by vet Chris. We explained the earlier haemorrhagic diarrhoea episode. Chris asked us if he could have swallowed a foreign object - such as a sock! At this point, we wondered about Jaspers habit of chewing up plastic flowerpots and collecting stones, two habits which we are trying to discourage. And we mentioned bloat as a possibility. Whatever it was the diagnosis wasn't immediately obvious, so we waited for an X-Ray. Twenty minutes later, we had our answer - the diagnosis was bloat, and Chris confirmed we had done exactly the right thing by acting immediately. We left Jasper with Chris and his assistant to perform the emergency operation at two the morning, and he phoned us at three o clock - Jasper had come through OK. The following morning he was transferred to our regular practice for a couple of days of post-op monitoring and aftercare. We are advised in the ISBC notes and on the website about bloat when taking on a rescue Setter, and reminded regularly about this very serious condition in the ISBC newsletter. So here it is once again! As far as we can tell we did everything we could have done to reduce the risk. We were feeding Jasper a sensitive lamb and rice kibble with a little meat, three times daily, in a raised bowl, with his earlier gentle exercise on a lead and the feeding separated by half an hour. But although we have tried to discourage it, Jasper is one bouncy oversized puppy, especially after feeding, and it seems that it only takes one unnoticed false move. His stomach had rotated three quarters round. We counted ourselves so very lucky to have noticed a problem, and then to have acted promptly. Spotting it early also meant he could be operated on just once, rather than have high-risk stomach trauma surgery, later followed by a separate procedure to attach the stomach to the muscle wall lining to prevent recurrence. Chatting to the vet when checking his stitches a few days later, he mentioned that bloat cases often seemed to come in at night - which could tie in with evening feeding routines. The total cost of this operation and aftercare was impressive at over £1300, and we are extremely grateful to the Scheme for the financial help we received with this large bill. Jasper was now on a very little but often soft food diet, initially a specialist tinned mix supplied by the vets. After a week he was then on rice and tinned meat. The Elizabethan collar took some getting used to being eighteen inches across, but that only lasted a few days before the others had chewed chunks from the edges. While his recovery was rapid his weight had dropped back to 28 kgs as a result of the limited post-op diet. We are advised in the ISBC notes and on the website about bloat when taking on a rescue Setter, and reminded regularly about this very serious condition in the ISBC newsletter. So here it is once again! As far as we can tell we did everything we could have done to reduce the risk. We were feeding Jasper a sensitive lamb and rice kibble with a little meat, three times daily, in a raised bowl, with his earlier gentle exercise on a lead and the feeding separated by half an hour. But although we have tried to discourage it, Jasper is one bouncy oversized puppy, especially after feeding, and it seems that it only takes one unnoticed false move. His stomach had rotated three quarters round. We counted ourselves so very lucky to have noticed a problem, and then to have acted promptly. Spotting it early also meant he could be operated on just once, rather than have high-risk stomach trauma surgery, later followed by a separate procedure to attach the stomach to the muscle wall lining to prevent recurrence. Chatting to the vet when checking his stitches a few days later, he mentioned that bloat cases often seemed to come in at night - which could tie in with evening feeding routines. The total cost of this operation and aftercare was impressive at over £1300, and we are extremely grateful to the Scheme for the financial help we received with this large bill. Jasper was now on a very little but often soft food diet, initially a specialist tinned mix supplied by the vets. After a week he was then on rice and tinned meat. The Elizabethan collar took some getting used to being eighteen inches across, but that only lasted a few days before the others had chewed chunks from the edges. While his recovery was rapid his weight had dropped back to 28 kgs as a result of the limited post-op diet.
We hoped to get him fit for what we call Matlock Walkies -
the annual Rescue Walk with dozens of other Irish Setters
and assorted others, followed by the garden party with tea
and cakes. Here Jasper met many new ISBC friends, and we had
a grand day out even if we all got a bit damp. Being a
resilient type doing the walk was no problem for Jasper, and
the odd morsel or three thrown his way afterwards was also
good news now that his weight was back to square one. The
happy ending to this story is that the Form 3 was also
completed at Matlock - Jasper is now signed over to us, in
his new happy home with two other rescue Setters. More
steady feeding (and occasional forbidden treats while the
other two are distracted) should see him up to proper weight
before too long.
Phil & Jackie Cater
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