[ckrott]

Last week we got our 9 month old puppy spayed and had to take her to Emergency Animal Care Monday (last) night around 9pm. Long story short, she somehow got to her stitches (keep in mind this is with an Elizabethan Collar AND some tranquilizers to keep her calm) and the omentum (some net like part of her gut) was trailing out of her. We were advised at that time by the Emergency Care Vet that our options were to:
A) to has them operate immediately to remove the exposed area to prevent any infection to the abdomen or
B) administer Antibiotics and temporarily bandage the area and we can take her to our regular vet in the AM. And oh by the way, if you choose option B, we will need you to sign a waiver saying that you understand the risks to your pet’s life.

Both my husband and I are newbies at dog ownership, but are trying to learn and do the best for our dog. We tried contacting the breeder, but wasn’t able to make contact with her until this morning. Since we didn’t want to risk anything happening to the pup, we went ahead and authorized the Emer Care to operate at a cost of between $1500 to $3000 (that was their estimate)!

Prognosis: The dog was trying to get at the stitches because the area inside was irritated. When they reopened her surgical area, they found that her body had rejected the dissolving sutures within 3-4 days. The ended up using staples instead.

Our concern:

When we did talk to our breeder, she did say that the dissolving sutures were standard practice for both people and pets because ideally, you don’t want to leave things behind within the body. But there are times when dogs don’t react well to the sutures.
Our regular Vet confirmed that this is a likely event, although he says that he’s only seen 1-2 cases a year with this reaction and in those cases, it took the dogs 3-4 weeks for their bodies to reject the sutures. He was very apologetic for the complication and did wish that there was a way to know that she would react this way so they would have used alternative sutures from the start. He was very appalled at the Emer. Care charges and immediately asked for the vet, practice and their number. He’s going to be calling them to find out why the costs are so high. He was also of the opinion that they should NOT have presented the second option in such a way as to be misleading. In his opinion, this could have waited and he would have been able to help her first thing in the AM.

So who am I to believe? I have no idea whose opinion I should trust at this point. Up until this point, our vet has been great with our dog, but she’s never had any surgery before. At the same time, that amount of money that we were given for the estimate seem so insane and I just felt like they were preying on the fact that it was late at night and we had nowhere to turn for our dog.

Thoughts?