My friend Harry's story (pt 2) - and a warning

I forgot to tell you yesterday that mistress met Vicky on a Land Rover forum. More a venue for roughy-toughy, macho, sexist men (not all of them) than anything else. When Vicky told us on the forum the first time Harry was poorly, she received lots of support. And as you know from yesterday's post, he improved after that first op.

So it's one of the reasons we try to send positive thoughts and good wishes when we hear about poorly doggies. It can't do any harm, and a little moral support for humans is always helpful at a difficult time. Anyway, here is part 2.


"But 15 minutes later he returned, with bad news.

Harry’s windpipe was almost closed up with scar tissue. After telling the vet Harry’s history, it became clear that in the early days after his bowel op - while he was almost comatose - he’d probably regurgitated some stomach acid.

And being unable to cough, it had gone down his windpipe and burnt it, the scar tissue had gradually built up, almost closing his airway. The only solution now was to remove as much of the damaged windpipe as possible and re-join what was left.

This operation carried the danger that the join could scar again even when the two joined parts were healthy. In Harry’s case it wasn’t known how much was damaged and only so much could be removed.

The op went well. It hadn’t been possible to remove all the damaged windpipe, and he was on steroids and anti-biotics to reduce the chance of scarring, but the vet was hopeful. The next four weeks would be crucial.

Harry stayed with the vet for a week and then Vicky collected him, but in a few days there were more problems. He’d developed an allergic reaction to the steroids, they caused ulcers in his lower bowel which started to bleed, so he was taken off them.

Days later, he returned to check how his windpipe was healing. There was no evidence of scarring, and there was a good wide opening in the windpipe.

Vicky drove to collect him, absolutely elated with the news, but worried what else was going to go wrong. It just felt like every time something went well he was knocked back again with another problem.

But the crucial time passed, and he built up his weight and his fitness.

Three months later, the pictures (on both these two posts) show Harry on one of his favourite walks in the Cotswolds. A picture of health, Vicky's Huge Happy Hairy Harry has returned. And in Vicky's eyes he has added another H to his name - Harry the Hero."

You can read the story in the July issue of Dogs Today.

The photos and text published here are with Vicky's permission.

It's so easy for dogs to pick things up from anywhere - inside or outside your home. There are so many things for them to pick up -and swallow. We can never be too careful. Harry was a fighter, he had a loving family like many of us on DWB - and finally, luck was with him.

Vicky wanted to tell this story so that people with dogs are aware of the dangers we all face - add sweetcorn cobs to that list of things to leave alone all you pups.