07/07/2025
🚨 GRAPHIC MEDICAL IMAGE WARNING BELOW 🚨
📣 Client story shared with permission
We want to give a huge shoutout to our colleagues at Elm Hill Vet Clinic, where we performed this emergency surgery on a truly lucky pup.
This beautiful 7-year-old, 40lb hound mix was brought in feeling terrible. The owners thought she might’ve gotten into the trash. But the morning of her appointment, she developed a concerning vaginal discharge. She had seemed “off” for a few days, but that morning marked a sharp decline.
This sweet girl was, unfortunately, a textbook case of pyometra—a life-threatening uterine infection that affects intact (unspayed) female dogs, typically 7–9 years old and often a few weeks post-heat cycle.
🩺 Symptoms can be subtle—not eating, low energy, just seeming “off.” But under the surface, the infection is building.
📊 Diagnostics usually show:
• Very high white blood cell count
• Fever
• Dehydration
• And a dog that just looks and feels awful
Our schedule was full, so we tried to get her into urgent care for immediate surgery, but no clinics were available. We gave her fluids and an injectable antibiotic and had her return the next morning.
Miraculously, even one round of antibiotics helped—she was up and walking again the next day.
🩻 During surgery, we found that her uterus was filled with 2.5 pounds of pus. For comparison, we’ve included an image showing what a normal uterus looks like in a dog her size—and the shocking contrast with her infected uterus.
⚠️ If her treatment had been delayed even a few more hours, she would not have survived.
We are so happy to report that she is now doing great, and her family says she’s completely back to her old self.
🌟 This story is a powerful reminder of the importance of spaying your pets.
Spaying a young, healthy animal—or even an older one who isn’t sick—is far safer than performing emergency surgery on a dog who’s knocking on death’s door.
These loving owners had no idea pyometra was even a risk. Let this be a reminder: knowledge saves lives.
