Surgery

Soft Tissue Surgery

Surgical removal of the anal gland(s) due to impaction, abscesses, reoccurring infections

Abdominal Surgery

Just like with humans, cats and dogs sometimes need help during delivery.

Elective Surgery

Neutering male animals – including when a testicle hasn’t descended into the scrotum – those should always be removed but they can (and often do) lead to cancer of that testicle

Ophthalmic Surgery

Cherry eye is a prolapse of the third eyelid – this gland becomes red and swollen due to inflammation. This surgery is preformed by tacking the third eyelid back down – the gland is generally not removed because that can cause other eye problems

A cystotomy is a bladder surgery. Usually this is to remove bladder stones which can cause urinary issues/blockages and be extremely dangerous for the pet.

Orthopedic Surgery

Some dogs have loose or floppy dewclaws that could get caught on thing and cause damage to the nail/toe. We can remove these nails (which does remove the dewclaw toe) to combat that problem.

Elective Surgery

Some breed have a standard of docking tails and removing the dewclaws. This is only done with certain breeds and must be done between 3 and 5 days after birth.

Elective Surgery

We will crop the ears of a few breeds do to breed standards. These are usually bully breeds.

Soft Tissue Surgery

This is surgical repair of an ear that has a reoccurring hematoma. The hematoma is drained and then sutures are placed to keep the ear flap from filling back with fluid.

Soft Tissue Surgery

This is very common in short-nosed dogs, along with stenotic nares. The soft palate is too long for the length of the mouth and can partially block the entrance to the trachea, making breathing difficult. This can be fixed by cutting that soft palate back to a normal length.

Ophthalmic Surgery

Entropion is when the eyelids turn inward and the eyelashes rub on the eye and ectropion is when the eyelids turn outward (appear droopy) and can make a dog prone to a number of eye problems. We can surgically fix both of these conditions.

Ophthalmic Surgery

Enucleation surgery is the removal of an eye. This can be done due to a mass in the eye, severe glaucoma/uveitis, or trauma/injury to the eye.

Abdominal Surgery

Our pets may need abdominal exploratory surgery for a number of reasons including foreign bodies, masses in the abdomen, etc. During exploratory surgery we can perform enterotomies (opening the intestines – usually to remove foreign bodies), gastrotomies (opening the stomach – also usually to remove foreign bodies), and bowel resections (removing sections of intestine – usually secondary to diseased intestine).

Orthopedic Surgery

FHO surgery is a hip surgery where the head of the femur (the “ball” of the hip joint) is removed to restore mobility and reduce pain to a damaged or diseased hip.

We can do several kinds of fine needle aspirate or biopsies. We can take a small sample masses and lesions to determine if it is something that needs further treatment – ie. is potentially malignant and needs to be removed completely, is infection and needs different antibiotics, etc. This can also be of an abdominal organ such as the liver with the help of our ultrasound machine without having to do abdominal surgery.

Orthopedic Surgery

We do may types of fracture repairs – from placing pins and plates to wiring bones to placing external fixation devises to broken bones

Abdominal Surgery

Gastropexy is also known as a stomach tack – this procedures helps to prevent gastric dilatation and volvulus (GDV – “bloat”) and is recommended in many large breed dogs.

Ophthalmic Surgery

A grid keratotomy is an eye procedure to build a “grid” on an eye with a deep ulcer to help the eye ulcer heal.

Soft Tissue Surgery

We surgically fix several kinds of hernias – from umbilical hernias during spay/neuter surgeries as puppies, to inguinal hernias due to traumas. (umbilical, inguinal, diaphragmatic, perineal)

Soft Tissue Surgery

Laceration repairs are a very common procedure we perform. Most can be done with injectable sedation instead of general anesthesia and we can even place drains if the laceration/wound is too deep

Abdominal Surgery

Laparoscopic surgery uses a small incision with a camera to look into the abdominal cavity. Spays are a common surgery we do this way but we can also perform laparoscopic biopsies. The benefit is a smaller than normal incision and less invasive surgery and therefore reduced pain.

Orthopedic Surgery

This is the other ACL repair surgery we perform and is used in our very small dogs and occasionally cats. This procedure uses a nylon suture to stabilize the joint and “replace” the torn cruciate ligament.

Orthopedic Surgery

When an injury occurs, we can remove a painful leg or tail surgically.

Soft Tissue Surgery

One of our most common procedures we do here are mass removals. Sometimes this is due to the possibility of cancer and sometimes it’s because the mass is getting large and bothering the pet. We generally send the mass off for histopathology to determine if it is malignant and if we removed the whole mass.

Soft Tissue Surgery

Pets can get breast cancer just like humans. When they develop masses on their mammary glands, we can perform a mastectomy to remove the potentially cancerous tissue.

This is a possible treatment for skin-based mast cell tumors.

Elective Surgery

Spaying female animals – this is recommended in all cats and dogs that will not be bred to reduce the risks of cancer.

Perineal urethrostomy (PU) surgery is most commonly performed on males cats with reoccurring urinary blockages. It removes the narrowest portion of the urethra which allows for easier urination and decreases the risk of reobstruction.

Abdominal Surgery

Pyometra is a uterine infection. This is when the uterus becomes infected and usually filled with pus. This will make the pet very ill and is a life-threatening condition. We can perform surgery to remove this pus-filled uterus which results in spaying the pet and eliminates the risk of reoccurrence.

Abdominal Surgery

The spleen stores blood and if damaged, can cause profuse bleeding in the abdomen which is a life-threatening condition. A pet can life a normal life without the spleen so if a mass or other problem is found with the spleen (such as trauma), we can remove it and prevent internal bleeding from the organ.

Soft Tissue Surgery

This is another common problem in short-nosed dogs. These dogs have small or narrow nostrils which restricts the amount of air getting into the nose when they breathe. This can be fixed by surgically widening the nostrils (nares)

Orthopedic Surgery

Tibial Tuberosity Advancement – this is the most common ACL repair surgery we perform. It involves cutting the top of the tibia (shin bone).

Transtracheal wash is a procedure we do to get diagnostic samples from the trachea and lungs. This is most commonly performed with chronic coughing patients or those with pneumonia that isn’t responding well to treatment. Once we acquire the samples from the trachea and lungs, we send them to a lab for culture and analysis.

Orthopedic Surgery

Trochleargroove surgery is a knee surgery we perform most commonly to fix problems with luxating patellas. Luxating patellas is when the knee cap pops in and out of place, occurs usually in small dogs, and can be very painful.

Soft Tissue Surgery

We surgically debride (remove dead or damaged tissue) wounds to help with healing.