Sweet 13-week-old Labrador puppy Luna was rushed into our Emergency and Critical Care department as she was lethargic, had a high temperature and swollen knee joints in both of her back legs.
Alice Le Gal, one of our Specialists in Emergency and Critical Care stabilised her while she was in our Intensive Care Unit with pain relief. As she wasn’t able to walk when she arrived, she was also examined by Phil Franklin, one of our Clinicians in Orthopaedics.
Luna was then transferred to our Internal Medicine team for further investigations and a diagnosis of her condition. Harriet Hall, one of our Specialists in Small Animal Internal Medicine performed multiple blood tests, as well as taking faecal and urine samples to be tested. She also asked our Diagnostic Imaging team to take x-rays of her joints, her abdomen and her chest. The results came back from our on-site laboratory and Diagnostics team that showed that Luna had marked inflammation in her knee joints and her joint fluid was infected with a bacteria called Salmonella.
Salmonellosis is an illness caused by infection with one of the many Salmonella bacteria. It is a zoonosis which means that the infection could be transmitted from animals to humans. Infection with Salmonella does not always result in sickness but can lead to infected animals or people becoming carriers so, despite appearing healthy, they can still infect others.
Most human Salmonella infections are due to eating contaminated food. People who are ill with salmonellosis often have diarrhoea, vomiting or a ‘flu-like’ symptoms. Children, pregnant women, the elderly and occasionally healthy adults may become seriously ill and require hospital treatment. The Salmonella bacteria can also be found in some raw foods which in Luna’s case was the cause of her illness.
Luna was instantly started on antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and pain relief and responded really well to her treatment. After a few days of treatment she was back with her new family and able to play and settle into her home!
Luna is a very lucky puppy and by being referred quickly by her local vet to a specialist-led hospital such as ours with all the different services on one site meant that she could be diagnosed and treated and back home to her loving family in no time at all!
Her owner said “Thank you so much to the team at DWR Veterinary Specialists for the amazing care they took over Luna. A scary situation was made a bit easier knowing she was in safe hands. We now have a very happy and healthy dog.”
