07/29/2007

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
Dr. Tom Mertaugh and Dave Durdel take a look at Tango’s X-rays.

Heroic Mea$ure$

Some owners incur thousands in expenses
when a pet is ill, injured

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
Dave Durdel, of Traverse City, comforts his Ibizan Hound Tango while the 1-year-old dog has threaded stainless steel external fixator pins removed from his once-broken, now-healed leg at the Animal Medical Center in Traverse City.

It was a Saturday like any other Saturday when a bundle of black and white fur caught Mandie Carpenter's attention.

Carpenter, a restaurant manager and the chief executive officer of the local animal rescue group PetSafe Rescue Alliance, was holding in-store adoptions at PetSmart late in the summer of 2005 when a farmer brought in a cat that had been hit by a car and left for dead. Carpenter stood by while veterinarian Craig Brakeman examined the animal at Banfield Pet Hospital. She listened with a sinking heart as he made his diagnosis: the cat's spine had been severed, leaving its hind quarters permanently paralyzed.

"He said, 'He's not going to be able to walk ever again,'” said Carpenter, 21. "The big decision was, do we put him down? We didn't want him to suffer or be in pain or be depressed.”

For reasons she can't quite explain, the long-haired cat tugged at Carpenter's heart. She volunteered to foster it if the group would be willing to help find it a permanent home. And when, a year later, nobody had stepped forward to claim the cat now called Buckles, she simply adopted him herself.

"He just had such a great personality,” she said. "You could rub his belly and he'd roll over. He was so personable. He couldn't care less that he couldn't walk on his two front legs.”

Carpenter's willingness to take on the cat's extra care — and the cost it entails — isn't unusual, said Patrick LeBlanc, director of Michigan State University's Veterinary Teaching Hospital in East Lansing. The clinic averages 24,000 cases a year, including hundreds from the Traverse City area, many of which once would have been considered hopeless.

"It used to be when an animal got the diagnosis of cancer, (the treatment was) to be make them comfortable and then put them out of their misery,” said LeBlanc. "Now we have a whole cancer care clinic with nine cancer specialists and radiation therapy.”

While the therapy involves 20 treatments over the course of a month — to the tune of $6,000 — many pet owners are willing to make the sacrifice, he said. In fact, the clinic treats about five or six animals a day with the therapy.

Besides advanced treatment for cancer, veterinary hospitals now can offer pets hip replacements, advanced rehabilitation therapy and cataract surgery to replace cloudy lenses with new artificial ones. There's even arthroscopic surgery to diagnose and repair minor damage to knees, shoulders and other joints.

"We're doing a lot more stuff that's minimally invasive,” LeBlanc said. "In the past, people would put their pets down because they didn't want to put their animal through surgery. Now we can do it with small incisions.”

But improvements in veterinary medicine are only part of the reason pets are living longer, he believes.

"People just seem willing to do more for their pets these days,” he said. "There's a technological explanation for that, but I think the bigger part is a social part. Very definitely people bring them into the family more than they did.”

For Carpenter, caring for the paralyzed Buckles is no more than she'd do for a human member of the family, even if it means having to express his bladder several times a day.

"Yes, he's inconvenient,” she said. "I have to make sure I'm home every 12 hours. If he gets a bladder infection, I have to run to the doctor to get his medication.”

But that's nothing compared to the joy of seeing the cat climb to the fourth story of his five-story cat tower with his muscular front legs or snuggle up contentedly to his feline pal, Tang, she added.

"He's a happy cat. He is not slowed down by this,” she said.

Saving a pet who is seriously ill or injured can be costly — and complicated. Few employers recognize pet emergencies as reasons for employees to take sick time — and companies that offer personal and vacation days usually require them to be scheduled in advance.

"We do have a lot more options,” LeBlanc said. "Then again, they're becoming pretty expensive. We have clients going out the door pretty regularly with bills in the high figures — $10,000 or $20,000.”

While those numbers may be extreme, 26 percent of pet owners who responded to a 2004 survey by the American Animal Hospital Association said they spent $250-$499 on veterinary care for their pet in the previous 12 months. Twenty-two percent spent $500-$999, and 19 percent spent $1,000 or more.

"We call Tigger the million-dollar kitty,” said Cindy Ruzak, who lost her 21-year-old cat in March after an extended illness. "He had a cardiologist, he had an eye doctor. We had him at the MSU vet clinic so often I said, 'You should have a wing for us.'”

Ruzak, owner of the Grey Hare Inn Vineyard Bed and Breakfast with her husband, Jay, stopped at nothing when it came to treating the cat, who suffered from a relatively uncommon respiratory condition called chylothorax. Eventually that included a tracheotomy, which the couple had to clean twice a day.

"The vet said, 'You've done a nice thing. You have given your cat a gift of life,'” Ruzak said. "I said, 'If it will allow him to sit on my lap one more day without a breathing spasm it will be worth the $3,000.' He lived five more months before something finally gave out.”

Tigger was just one of the couple's six cats, another of which also died in March after a critical illness. In an effort to save that cat, named Buddy, the couple rented an oxygen tank with a baby mask to transport him to East Lansing.

"We even looked for an airvac service to fly him down,” Ruzak said. "As nutso as it always sounds, these are my children and I care for them like I would a kid.”

Cheri and Dave Durdel put their lives on hold for two months after their Ibizan hound, Tango, broke his leg on the fireplace hearth.

"His leg was just hanging there,” said Cheri Durdel, who came running when she heard a blood-curdling cry from the living room where the dog had been playing with their 55-pound Dalmation, Nugget. "I knew immediately what was wrong.”

After an emergency trip to the veterinarian, followed by surgery, Tango came home with an external fixator — a system of pins, rods and clamps — holding the bones in place. Then it was a long struggle to help the young dog heal, said Durdel, who documented his progress on a Web site for family and friends.

"He's truly a baby,” she said of the large-eared sighthound with the champion show career. "The breed is even more active than others and we had just started him on lure coursing (a sport for dogs that involves chasing a mechanically operated lure).”

To keep him safe and quiet, the couple — owners of a breeding kennel called Highland Dalmations — had to separate him from their eight other dogs and supervise him constantly or confine him to a small room they use for whelping. They covered their hardwood floors with rubber-backed rugs and installed baby gates all over the house. To keep him fit and entertained, they walked him along their 850-foot driveway several times a day and filled rubber "educational toys” with peanut butter, cream cheese and other treats.

Even then, he managed to rip up three dog beds, two mattress pads and two sets of sheets — and his own stitches, said Durdel, a customer service representative for an insurance company.

Eleven weeks, 10 veterinarian visits and nearly $3,000 later, the fixator was removed. And Durdel, 43, said Tango is expected to make a full recovery.

But many people still act puzzled when she describes the horror of the couple's experience, she said.

"If you don't have a pet — if you don't know the joy an animal brings you, the pain you feel when they're hurt — you don't understand,” she said.