“Riley” Fisher

Riley is a gorgeous 1.5 year old female Golden Retriever who came to see us in April 2020. She had not been eating for a few days and also started vomiting quite a lot now too. The owner had noticed a mielie core in the vomit and was very concerned that more might be stuck inside Riley’s gastro-intestinal tract (GIT). The owner also mentioned that Riley is a breeding bitch and had been mated about 1 month earlier. Dr Ryan attended to Riley and thankfully found her to be stable but her demeanour was depressed and very lethargic especially for a normally bouncy, playful young dog. When palpating her abdomen Dr Ryan gave the owners the happy news that Riley was indeed pregnant and with a rather large litter – many foetuses could be felt within the abdomen. She was however uncomfortable on abdominal palpation and unfortunately the presence of so many small foetuses made it impossible to determine if there was indeed a foreign body stuck somewhere in her GIT. Given her symptoms and the fact that Riley’s mom had seen a mielie core Dr Ryan recommended that she be referred to a nearby specialist for an ultrasound scan to visualise the GIT inside the abdomen and better determine if there was indeed an obstruction. Unfortunately for Riley this proved to be the case and she would need emergency surgery to remove the foreign body.

The big risk factor for Riley’s surgery though was her current pregnancy. The fact that she had been ill and not eating any food for several days now, the general anaesthetic she would need for surgery as well as the big intra-abdominal surgery itself could all potentially place too much strain on her system and sadly cause her body to go into survival mode and abort the foetuses. Together with Riley’s mom and dad the decision was made to go ahead with the surgery, because without it Riley’s life was at risk. The safest possible anaesthetic protocol was used to place Riley under general anaesthetic and she was kept on oxygen and drip fluids to give her and her puppies the best chance of survival. Dr Ryan performed an emergency enterotomy and removed a…. yip you guessed it, a mielie core, which had become lodged in her small intestine. We were also able to carefully examine her uterus and found 9 one-month old foetuses just waiting for their shot at life.

Thankfully Riley recovered well from the anaesthetic and was eventually sent home with us all holding our breath over the next few days as we waited to hear news of the fate of her pregnancy. Her mom let us know a few days after surgery that Riley was doing extremely well and was back to her old playful, healthy self and there had so far been no sign of her giving up on her unborn pups.