Brave Pet Of The Month…..Ozzy
Meet Ozzy, a lovely 1-year-old Labrador Retriever who came to see us in April this year with a sore mouth.
Ozzy was out for a walk with his owners and yelped while carrying a stick in his mouth. Following this, Ozzy seemed a bit quiet in himself, was eating more tentatively than he normally would do and yelped again on a couple of occasions when picking up treats and toys.
Ozzy was brought in to see one of our vets and a physical examination was performed looking particularly for broken teeth and swellings on the face or neck which could explain Ozzy’s oral pain. None of these were found, however, Ozzy was repeatably very unhappy and yelping when his jaw was fully opened.
Ozzy was then admitted to our hospital to receive some strong pain relief, but even with this on board, Ozzy didn’t seem any more comfortable. It was decided that the best course of action was to sedate Ozzy to be able to more thoroughly examine his mouth as even at the best of times, this can be challenging to do consciously, let alone when the area is sore.
Once sedated, a small hole which was discharging pus was visualised at the back of Ozzy’s mouth on the left-hand side. The main concern was that this hole had been caused by a foreign body.
The area was then surgically explored under a general anaesthetic and a 2cm fragment of stick was retrieved!
After a few more hours in the hospital to recover from his procedure, Ozzy was discharged home on some pain relief and a short course of antibiotics.
When seen for his recheck appointment a few days later, Ozzy was doing a lot better and has since gone on to make a full recovery!