I was out at the park with my dog Cookie today. She does love to run in the long grass looking for lizards to chase and was having an amazing time catching absolutely no lizards as usual. On our way home I saw blood running out of her foot. I kept watching and eventually grabbed her paw to have a look. Well the blood was squirting out. I got her to the vet and it turns out she'd cut an artery. Maybe on some glass? She's all bandaged up now, having a night with them to see in the morning if she needs a stitch or not. She's not going to die, and indeed she is oblivious to the whole thing with tail wagging and big pink tongue hanging out but do you have any animal rescue stories to make me smile?
pet get well stories
- Thread starter ellejay
- Start date
Oh, that's a horrible feeling to have when they're not well. I'm not sure whether I have story to tell, though one of the pet group I'm part of had her puppy attacked by a snake. She heroically get the dog off, just after the puppy stop breathing. She did CPR, drive right to the emergency and after a couple of night in emergency + broken ribs, the puppy is now back home resting 
Had a Labrador called Murphy when we were growing up. It was back in the days when dogs could wander around freely, knocking over garbage bins at will, running across the road at leisure, dating whoever they wanted, etc.
We lived in an area with a lot of bush and a new busy road nearby. One day my Mum was talking to the neighbour and Murphy came and sat next to her while they were talking. After a while, the neighbour looked at the dog and said, "Is that blood?" He'd been hit by a car and his back right leg was shattered but he was sitting there calmly, waiting for her to notice.
She took him to the vet straight away and he had the operation which involved putting in a pin to connect the broken bone. In those days, expensive operations on pets were a fairly new thing.
He was a beautiful dog and had a long and happy life - swimming at the beach, continuing to walk the streets whenever he wanted and travelling to Papua New Guinea with us while we lived up there - and back again, including 9 months in quarantine.
A very lovely animal and one of my best friends ever.
We lived in an area with a lot of bush and a new busy road nearby. One day my Mum was talking to the neighbour and Murphy came and sat next to her while they were talking. After a while, the neighbour looked at the dog and said, "Is that blood?" He'd been hit by a car and his back right leg was shattered but he was sitting there calmly, waiting for her to notice.
She took him to the vet straight away and he had the operation which involved putting in a pin to connect the broken bone. In those days, expensive operations on pets were a fairly new thing.
He was a beautiful dog and had a long and happy life - swimming at the beach, continuing to walk the streets whenever he wanted and travelling to Papua New Guinea with us while we lived up there - and back again, including 9 months in quarantine.
A very lovely animal and one of my best friends ever.
Oh, that's a horrible feeling to have when they're not well. I'm not sure whether I have story to tell, though one of the pet group I'm part of had her puppy attacked by a snake. She heroically get the dog off, just after the puppy stop breathing. She did CPR, drive right to the emergency and after a couple of night in emergency + broken ribs, the puppy is now back home resting
I am a bit woried about snakes so that reminds me to put snake first aid for dogs on my list of things to learn pronto. How calm would you need to be to do cpr in those circumstances? Amazing story, glad puppy lived to tell the tail (no pun intended)!
Bless him. I know how you feel x
I realise now with the benefit of hindsight it was all related but it started with me ordering 12 months supply of worming chews off the internet.....
They were delivered early one Friday morning and the delivery man didn't knock, just left the package at our front door. Our front yard is surrounded by a 6 foot fence with a gate so the dogs had access to the front yard and anything on the ground is fair game. My younger dog, Bailey, devoured the whole package including the worming chews, the foil packaging and the cardboard and didn't leave much behind. I rang the vet when this happened and they said she shouldn't OD on the worming stuff but keep an eye on her to see if she passes what she ate.
She was still drinking ok but not eating that I knew of (put that down to her being full) and was ok that night and for most of the next day which was Saturday. Then Saturday night she started projectile vomiting and then wouldn't even keep water down so it was a worrisome night where I stayed up most of the night with her keeping an eye on her.
Sunday morning I call the vets on the emergency line to tell them what's happened and they say to bring her in straight away. They assess her and fell her stomach which feels firm and ask when she last ate / pooed to which I couldn't answer with 100% certainty as I have 2 dogs and can't tell their poos apart! But as far as I knew she hadn't eaten or pooed for at least 24 hours. They take an x-ray and can see she's massively blocked and I was given the decision to either have her operated on or wait to see if she passes the blockage naturally but risk her intestines dying if the blockage is restricting circulation. On the vets advice I tell them to operate which they do and they see that her intestines / bowel still appear healthy and the vet felt around and couldn't feel any obvious obstructions. Bailey was stitched back up and kept at the vets until she did a number 2 which was late Monday afternoon so she was able to come back home Monday night feeling rather sore and sorry for herself.
Over the next couple of weeks she was still vomiting fairly regularly and after a few trips to the vet and anti nausea injections they couldn't find anything wrong with her. This went on for a while where her vomiting seemed to come and go with no apparent reason for it. This was happening when I was still flying to Melbourne every few weeks and my husband always complained that the dogs kept getting stuck into the Cycads, particularly when I wasn't at home keeping them company....
I was on the phone to my husband one night when I was in Melbourne and he mentioned hearing at work that Cycads are toxic to dogs and then my response was that we'll have to get rid of them when I get back home. After hanging up the phone from him I googled dogs and cycads and then learnt how toxic they really are, especially the seeds. I ring my husband back and tell him to get rid of the plants ASAP and book the dogs in to the vets. Luckily he had the next day off and dug out the massive Cycads and threw them in the bin (he must have forgotten the part where I told him to put them on gumtree as they can be valuable) and took the dogs to the vet in the afternoon.
I was home the following day and my husband gets a call from the vets saying blood test results are back - Bailey is fine, but my older dog Bix, is not. His liver enzymes are so high they can't even be measured and he's gone into liver failure. We went straight to the vets to discuss this. What she said is that nothing really can be done for his liver. It will either repair itself of fail completely and if it does repair itself it takes a long, long time. I was feeling completely helpless as there was nothing I could do to make him better. The vet then asked me if I would be willing to try natural therapies and I was like as long as it doesn't hurt him further I will try anything. So she said she had heard of some things but wanted to investigate it further and she'll give me a call.
Later that day she calls me to tell me to give Bix 1000mg of Milkthistle tablets a day and also to get some turmeric, black pepper and cocconut oil and what I was to do was put a teaspoon of turmeric in with a teaspoon coconut oil and some cracked black pepper and give that to him daily too then in 4 weeks they'll test his bloods again to see how his liver is progressing.
Longest 4 weeks of my (and probably Bix's) life where I was completely wracked with guilt but I gave him his natural remedies everyday. We went back to the vets in 4 weeks time and he gets his blood tested again and the vet said he'll call us in the afternoon with the result but not to expect any big change as the liver can be a slow healer. Vet calls and he said he looked at the notes and sees what the recommended treatment was and whether I did that to which I replied yes, everyday. The vet then says he's completely stunned and that he can't believe it but Bix's liver has completely repaired itself and his liver enzymes are at a completely normal level! He said that he had never seen anything like it and had never seen an animal survive poisoning from cycads. I have never been more relieved in my life.
I had always scoffed at natural remedies but at least in Bix's case I can say with almost certainty that they saved his life. Looking at him now you wouldn't think anything had happened to him and even though he's nearly 7 when I take him and Bailey for walks people often mistake him for a puppy. He has some hip and knee issues so giving glucosamine a go to see if that helps.
As a bit of a side note a few days after Bailey came back from the vet after her surgery my husband was doing the poo run and noticed one lot of poos that was filled with packaging and the metal blister packs so it passed after all!
So with the benefit of hindsight I now realise that Bailey's vomiting would have been her body getting rid of the toxins and not an actual blockage so I probably could have saved her from going through surgery and me a couple of grand. But... I would rather have happy and healthy pets than extra $$$ in my bank account.
They were delivered early one Friday morning and the delivery man didn't knock, just left the package at our front door. Our front yard is surrounded by a 6 foot fence with a gate so the dogs had access to the front yard and anything on the ground is fair game. My younger dog, Bailey, devoured the whole package including the worming chews, the foil packaging and the cardboard and didn't leave much behind. I rang the vet when this happened and they said she shouldn't OD on the worming stuff but keep an eye on her to see if she passes what she ate.
She was still drinking ok but not eating that I knew of (put that down to her being full) and was ok that night and for most of the next day which was Saturday. Then Saturday night she started projectile vomiting and then wouldn't even keep water down so it was a worrisome night where I stayed up most of the night with her keeping an eye on her.
Sunday morning I call the vets on the emergency line to tell them what's happened and they say to bring her in straight away. They assess her and fell her stomach which feels firm and ask when she last ate / pooed to which I couldn't answer with 100% certainty as I have 2 dogs and can't tell their poos apart! But as far as I knew she hadn't eaten or pooed for at least 24 hours. They take an x-ray and can see she's massively blocked and I was given the decision to either have her operated on or wait to see if she passes the blockage naturally but risk her intestines dying if the blockage is restricting circulation. On the vets advice I tell them to operate which they do and they see that her intestines / bowel still appear healthy and the vet felt around and couldn't feel any obvious obstructions. Bailey was stitched back up and kept at the vets until she did a number 2 which was late Monday afternoon so she was able to come back home Monday night feeling rather sore and sorry for herself.
Over the next couple of weeks she was still vomiting fairly regularly and after a few trips to the vet and anti nausea injections they couldn't find anything wrong with her. This went on for a while where her vomiting seemed to come and go with no apparent reason for it. This was happening when I was still flying to Melbourne every few weeks and my husband always complained that the dogs kept getting stuck into the Cycads, particularly when I wasn't at home keeping them company....
I was on the phone to my husband one night when I was in Melbourne and he mentioned hearing at work that Cycads are toxic to dogs and then my response was that we'll have to get rid of them when I get back home. After hanging up the phone from him I googled dogs and cycads and then learnt how toxic they really are, especially the seeds. I ring my husband back and tell him to get rid of the plants ASAP and book the dogs in to the vets. Luckily he had the next day off and dug out the massive Cycads and threw them in the bin (he must have forgotten the part where I told him to put them on gumtree as they can be valuable) and took the dogs to the vet in the afternoon.
I was home the following day and my husband gets a call from the vets saying blood test results are back - Bailey is fine, but my older dog Bix, is not. His liver enzymes are so high they can't even be measured and he's gone into liver failure. We went straight to the vets to discuss this. What she said is that nothing really can be done for his liver. It will either repair itself of fail completely and if it does repair itself it takes a long, long time. I was feeling completely helpless as there was nothing I could do to make him better. The vet then asked me if I would be willing to try natural therapies and I was like as long as it doesn't hurt him further I will try anything. So she said she had heard of some things but wanted to investigate it further and she'll give me a call.
Later that day she calls me to tell me to give Bix 1000mg of Milkthistle tablets a day and also to get some turmeric, black pepper and cocconut oil and what I was to do was put a teaspoon of turmeric in with a teaspoon coconut oil and some cracked black pepper and give that to him daily too then in 4 weeks they'll test his bloods again to see how his liver is progressing.
Longest 4 weeks of my (and probably Bix's) life where I was completely wracked with guilt but I gave him his natural remedies everyday. We went back to the vets in 4 weeks time and he gets his blood tested again and the vet said he'll call us in the afternoon with the result but not to expect any big change as the liver can be a slow healer. Vet calls and he said he looked at the notes and sees what the recommended treatment was and whether I did that to which I replied yes, everyday. The vet then says he's completely stunned and that he can't believe it but Bix's liver has completely repaired itself and his liver enzymes are at a completely normal level! He said that he had never seen anything like it and had never seen an animal survive poisoning from cycads. I have never been more relieved in my life.
I had always scoffed at natural remedies but at least in Bix's case I can say with almost certainty that they saved his life. Looking at him now you wouldn't think anything had happened to him and even though he's nearly 7 when I take him and Bailey for walks people often mistake him for a puppy. He has some hip and knee issues so giving glucosamine a go to see if that helps.
As a bit of a side note a few days after Bailey came back from the vet after her surgery my husband was doing the poo run and noticed one lot of poos that was filled with packaging and the metal blister packs so it passed after all!
So with the benefit of hindsight I now realise that Bailey's vomiting would have been her body getting rid of the toxins and not an actual blockage so I probably could have saved her from going through surgery and me a couple of grand. But... I would rather have happy and healthy pets than extra $$$ in my bank account.
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I don't know if my nerves would have stood all of that! Amazing how bodies can heal. I didn't realise that arteries in dogs' feet can heal, so surgery isn't always needed. A liver healing itself sounds absolutely amazing and almost unbelievable. I think I'll pay more attention to natural remedies after hearing about Bix.
Hi, she's good thanks. They didn't need to stitch, it's just like a puncture basically. She's all bandaged up, the vet says it's still oozing but keep her quiet for a couple of days and he'll see her again. She's having scrambled egg and antibiotics for tea. She looks so cute, slightly dry nose and very sad expression but still eating like a horse. That must be a good sign.
Good to hear, big eat usually good sign, hope she'll be all healed in a couple of days
A few years ago, my 17 yr old cat went outside one evening.
My husband heard a commotion outside..dog sounds...but we didn't have a dog then.
I went to check, and saw my cat being attacked by 2 big dogs.
I didn't have time to be scared..I just rushed outside screaming at the dogs.
My cat was lucky. He was badly bruised, but the bites didn't do any long lasting damage.
He was on antibiotics and pain pills for a while.
The dogs lived down the street...and the owner paid the vet bill.
My cat lived another 2 years
My husband heard a commotion outside..dog sounds...but we didn't have a dog then.
I went to check, and saw my cat being attacked by 2 big dogs.
I didn't have time to be scared..I just rushed outside screaming at the dogs.
My cat was lucky. He was badly bruised, but the bites didn't do any long lasting damage.
He was on antibiotics and pain pills for a while.
The dogs lived down the street...and the owner paid the vet bill.
My cat lived another 2 years
I don't know if my nerves would have stood all of that! Amazing how bodies can heal. I didn't realise that arteries in dogs' feet can heal, so surgery isn't always needed. A liver healing itself sounds absolutely amazing and almost unbelievable. I think I'll pay more attention to natural remedies after hearing about Bix.
Yeah, it was tough but we all got through it! I've done a bit of reading since and am not a total natural remedy convert yet but I certainly will no longer dismiss it like I used to!
I was so involved in writing my store I forgot to send well wishes Cookie's way. Good to hear she's doing better!
Our Westie Sophie had a lamb bone lodged in her Esophagus, we rushed her to our vet, apparently it was too large to pull out and could tear the lining of her esophagus. The only option was to push it down to her stomach and then operate, however it was hit and miss whether this would be possible, if not, no alternative but to put her down.
The short story was we got a phone call from the vet after a couple of hours of perseverance..... she made it. We picked up Sophie the next morning, looking a little depressed but once we got her home she was fine. Anyway, that was a $3000 vet bill, moral of the story, don't give your dogs any bones, my vet said its an absolute no no.... cooked or not cooked.
Sophie is the picture above
The short story was we got a phone call from the vet after a couple of hours of perseverance..... she made it. We picked up Sophie the next morning, looking a little depressed but once we got her home she was fine. Anyway, that was a $3000 vet bill, moral of the story, don't give your dogs any bones, my vet said its an absolute no no.... cooked or not cooked.
Sophie is the picture above
... moral of the story, don't give your dogs any bones, my vet said its an absolute no no.... cooked or not cooked.
Really? This always confuses me. At our puppy training, we had a session on diet & were advised to give our dog raw chicken carcasses / raw lamb bones etc, cooked vegies (not onions or toxic to dogs ones etc) & no processed food from the vet or the supermarket as it was akin to giving the dog McDonalds. We were told this also cuts down on the amount of pooh & the pooh itself will dry up faster.
Really? This always confuses me. At our puppy training, we had a session on diet & were advised to give our dog raw chicken carcasses / raw lamb bones etc, cooked vegies (not onions or toxic to dogs ones etc) & no processed food from the vet or the supermarket as it was akin to giving the dog McDonalds. We were told this also cuts down on the amount of pooh & the pooh itself will dry up faster.
My beautiful - and now passed on - Mushka was being looked after my my fil while we were away ... they used to go fishing together, until one day on the runabout he caught a fish, reached for the knife and she ate it while he wasn't looking - hook and all.
To make it worse, he banged his head on the front access hatch in his hurry to lift the anchor (blood everywhere) - then ran out of fuel so had to flag down another boatie to give him a tow.
Took Mush to the vets and they only gave him laxatives (didn't even bother x-raying!). He spent all night checking her poop for a hook but fortunately we were back the next day.
I rushed her straight to my vet - with laboured breathing as her throat swelled - and it took four of them nearly and hour to get the hook out via the mouth. They were seconds away from going in via the neck when the hook came free.
All ended well - except that I'll never let my hubby forget his suggestion to "just have her put down".
To make it worse, he banged his head on the front access hatch in his hurry to lift the anchor (blood everywhere) - then ran out of fuel so had to flag down another boatie to give him a tow.
Took Mush to the vets and they only gave him laxatives (didn't even bother x-raying!). He spent all night checking her poop for a hook but fortunately we were back the next day.
I rushed her straight to my vet - with laboured breathing as her throat swelled - and it took four of them nearly and hour to get the hook out via the mouth. They were seconds away from going in via the neck when the hook came free.
All ended well - except that I'll never let my hubby forget his suggestion to "just have her put down".
All ended well - except that I'll never let my hubby forget his suggestion to "just have her put down".
sometimes that is the best option...obviously not in this case.
Our Westie Sophie had a lamb bone lodged in her Esophagus, we rushed her to our vet, apparently it was too large to pull out and could tear the lining of her esophagus. The only option was to push it down to her stomach and then operate, however it was hit and miss whether this would be possible, if not, no alternative but to put her down.
The short story was we got a phone call from the vet after a couple of hours of perseverance..... she made it. We picked up Sophie the next morning, looking a little depressed but once we got her home she was fine. Anyway, that was a $3000 vet bill, moral of the story, don't give your dogs any bones, my vet said its an absolute no no.... cooked or not cooked.
Sophie is the picture above
OMG. Glad she's all better now.
My beautiful - and now passed on - Mushka was being looked after my my fil while we were away ... they used to go fishing together, until one day on the runabout he caught a fish, reached for the knife and she ate it while he wasn't looking - hook and all.
To make it worse, he banged his head on the front access hatch in his hurry to lift the anchor (blood everywhere) - then ran out of fuel so had to flag down another boatie to give him a tow.
Took Mush to the vets and they only gave him laxatives (didn't even bother x-raying!). He spent all night checking her poop for a hook but fortunately we were back the next day.
I rushed her straight to my vet - with laboured breathing as her throat swelled - and it took four of them nearly and hour to get the hook out via the mouth. They were seconds away from going in via the neck when the hook came free.
All ended well - except that I'll never let my hubby forget his suggestion to "just have her put down".
Another OMG. I feel slightly embarrassed my story seems a little dramatic now. Nerves of steel you lot
![image001[1].jpg](https://www.somersoft.com/data/attachments/11/11468-a3476c576fdad34f3bb06f0a996c97c6.jpg "image001[1].jpg")
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I'm surprised you were told that. We were cat sitting once and the owners made us give her chicken necks and had been told these are good. One night the cat started choking on a bone. It must have been a tiny bone because this cat had a really tiny little mouth. It eventually dislodged but she was really distressed for quite a while, and so were we wondering whether to take her to the vet or not.