[Dailydrool] poop eating& my vet

[Marie Campbell]

 Hi You Crazy Basset People,
    I will give you my two bit opinion and my vet's--he is a pretty smart guy and a very gifted surgeon--I have been madly in love with him since I was 20 and I am now 42.  He performs allot of intricate orthopedic surgeries on horses, cats, and dogs.  He is frequently asked by the specialty referral hospital to perform surgeries they feel are beyond even their surgeons.  In fact, I will bore you with a long story.  Twenty years ago, my Dad had a Rottie bitch that whelped 8 puppies and he noticed she was trying to kill one shortly after birth.  He noticed she had damaged his mouth and tried to bite off 4 of his toes.  He took the boy away from her ASAP and called me because I have always been a soft touch.  I had started bottle raising puppies that were thought hopeless when I was 10 years old.  I was 20 years old at the time and home from college when my Dad gave me "Cody" the rottie boy.  
    Well...when I got Cody from my Dad, he was 12 ounces and mom had pulled away his lower lip and you could see he was born with a cleft lower jaw.  The rottie was simply following a natural directive and trying to cull the weakest link.  I took him to my regular vet.  The tech shook her head when she saw Cody and said they would probably have to put him to sleep.  When I started to cry she informed me that the clinic had a specialty surgeon in that day and she would see see what he said.
    That is the fateful day I met Dr, Lucado.  He can in and said, "No, problem.  I am going to wire the two halves of his jaw together and run a pin through them to stabilize the two jaw plates and reattache the toes.  Come get him at 5PM."
    I was flabbergasted.  He had no doubt the puppy would be able to nurse normally on a bottle post op and would live fine and dandy.  I thought, " I guess I will see what happens at 5PM."  
I also thought, "I better brace myself for the bill as a starving college student."
    I arrived at 5PM nervous and anxious.  Here came Dr. Lucado with Cody.  Absolutely perfect.  He torn toes perfectly reattached.  His lips sown back on perfectly--you would never have know mom had ripped them off to the neck.  His jaw perfectly and beautifully stabilized.  He looked like a perfect rottie 2 days old pup.  (I have been feeding him with an eye dropped because he couldn't suckle with his deformed jaw or torn lips.}  Lucado had already bottle fed him post op and said he nursed perfectly on the bottle and he did!!!!  He handed me Cody and a can of formula and a bottle and said, "Bring him back in two weeks."
         Cody developed perfectly normally after that.  His jaw grew together--he had a slightly wry tilt to this jaw but his bit was good.  Lucado also warned me that he had lost a couple of tooth buds during surgery but other then that was fine.  He ate like a champ and grew to be a BIG, MUSCULAR, ROTTIE BOY!  
    The wire was removed from his jaw at two weeks old and the pin came out on its own when he was 3 weeks old or so.
    Here is the kicker---guess what Lucado charged me for this remarkable surgery on this 12 ounce, two week old boy?????  $89- including the can of formula and the bottle!!!!!  Can you believe it?
    Anyway, Lucado claims dogs eat poop when their gut is missing a bacteria and therefore they often get digestive upset and seek to balance their gut and get this bacteria via eating other dog's poop.  He has has me use both Fasttrack/Probios and/or yogurt on my puppies.  Both have worked well.  My mom's dog periodically eats poop and if we put yogurt in her food she stops.  But, Lucado warns that it becomes habitual and that if the behavior continues into adulthood it is very hard to stop.
Hope this helps,
Marie Campbell