Espanola Animal Hospital
3557 Errington Ave. P0M1L0 Chelmsford, ON, Canada

Petunia is a very sweet little girl who was referred to us by Springer Animal Hospital for an unknown trauma. Petunia came home to her family with a nasty open fracture of her right carpus; meaning bone had protruded through the skin. All four of her toes were broken and luxated (shifted over). Given the nature of this fracture, the best option for Petunia was a carpal arthrodesis. This would fuse her wrist and her toes so that after 12wks of healing, she could get back to running, jumping and playing! Surgery was uneventful and Petunia was a perfect patient. She got tons of snuggles and ear rubs during her stay with us, and was discharged to her owner the following morning, with a big smile on her face. :)

A small but determined team, a tough dog, and a good outcome Chase is a lovely 2yr old dog who lives in Wikwemikong with his wonderful family. 2 weeks ago, we received a call from Dr. Monika Stevens at Scott Veterinary Services, Mindemoya about a tough case with some tough circumstances. Chase had been coughing and retching, and when x-rays were obtained of his chest, they appeared to be fluid filled, but without any apparent explanation. Chase came to see us for a CT scan... of his chest, which revealed a right middle lung lobe torsion. Without surgery, Chase would not survive, but his family was not able to make the journey to see a soft tissue surgeon in Toronto. After careful consideration by everyone involved, it was decided that Dr. Rocheleau was the best chance that Chase had to survive, and with that, we went to surgery. Dr. Stevens scrubbed in with Dr. Rocheleau and surgery assistant Cassidy. The damaged lung lobe was carefully resected. A soaker catheter was placed to help control Chase's pain during recovery and he was pretty comfortable and happy after waking up from surgery a few hours later. Today was 14 days post-op and we cannot believe how well our little guy is doing! He burst through the door this morning smiling, tail wagging, and the owner reports he is doing excellent; even jumping on and off the bed! Good boy Chase

Helping this patient smile (a lot) wider! :D Storm is a 10 month old German Shepherd with a peculiar problem - she can't open her mouth! Storm first saw Dr. Rocheleau about a month ago; upon examination he found that Storm had an overbite and could open her mouth roughly 1-2cm. She could still drink and eat soft food, but smiling, catching a ball or chewing a toy were all out of the question. Storm had a head CT with 3D reconstruction to help us better understand exactly wh...at the cause of this problem was. Unbelievably, we discovered she had several badly healed fractures on the left side of her face, one of which was preventing her jaw from opening at all. Dr. Rocheleau and surgery assistant Hector performed an osteotomy to relieve the impingement, at the end of surgery she could open her mouth halfway. Storm has some at-home physio to do - in a few weeks she'll need to start chewing toys and rawhides to help stretch the muscles and tendons around her jaw and get her smiling her widest! See more

Sometimes we run out of options Calvin is a very sweet, approx 10 yr old cat who was adopted by his owner several years ago. He is a former street-cat and definitely has the scars to prove it. Calvin has suffered frost bite, ear mites, bullet wounds and a badly healed femoral fracture during his years on the streets. Despite all of this, he is a wonderful little guy with a very sweet and loving temperament. About a month ago, his owner noticed he had discharge coming from ...his left ear. Thinking it was an ear infection, the owner had been cleaning the ear, but things were not improving. In the past few weeks she noticed Calvin was acting a bit quiet and swallowing frequently. His ear was examined with an otoscope which showed very unusual discharge and blood in his ear canal. A head CT with contrast was performed, and unfortunately the news was not good. Calvin was diagnosed with not one, but two tumours. One in his brain, and the other in his inner ear. The owner did not wish to pursue follow-up with a surgical oncologist, so he was prescribed steroids, pain medication and a canned diet for the time being. The owner reports that Calvin has a voracious appetite and acts almost normally. We don't know how much time Calvin has left, but we can keep him happy and comfortable until the decision must be made. See more

Enjoy your good-as-new meniscus, Abby! Abby is an exceptionally beautiful mixed breed girl who has been living her best life since having a TPLO here 2 years ago. Suddenly last week, she became acutely non-weight bearing lame. Abby was diagnosed with a torn meniscus, which was confirmed via arthroscopy of her knee. Lucky for Abby, Team EAH has been working on meniscal repair for this exact problem. In humans, the meniscus is nearly always repaired, while in veterinary medi...cine, the meniscus is nearly always removed or released. The meniscus is a very important joint structure which serves to maintain joint space and stabilize the joint. Nothing makes us happier than having our patients be able to enjoy many, many years of running and playing, and having an intact meniscus plays a big part in this! Abby's meniscus was repaired in approx 15 minutes and she was walking very well on her leg when she was discharged the next morning. Here's to many more years of doggie shenanigans, Abby! See more

Helping Dogs Walk Again, And Also Sit Upright On The Couch While Watching TV Again :) Lucy came to see us about a month ago for spinal surgery after an acute disc extrusion left her paralysed. Aside from being able to walk and run again (which is always awesome), I guess if you can sit upright and do this, your back problems are pretty well resolved! Lucy's person sent us this message last week: "I’m just sending a [final] update on Lucy who was officially 4 weeks post-op y...esterday! She’s doing so, so well again I couldn’t thank the EAH team enough. I know you see thousands of animals a year and we are just a speck on the list but I truly have immense gratitude for the effort and care put into Lucy and I’m in shock how well she has recovered. She is doing so, so well and I can just tell she feels so much relief by being able to walk again. She is doing rehab at the Timmins Animal Hospital weekly and we are working hard at home with her exercises. Again, I’m extremely appreciative for all involved in Lucy’s care and I should also thank you for the fantastic follow up we received post-op. It made all the difference feeling a sincere concern for Lucy during critical recovery time." Enjoy your stories Lucy :) . Also, walking, running, playing and chasing squirrels.

IVIG To The Rescue Again! Diamond was in hospital a little while ago after a reaction to a bee sting went totally out of control. After a severe anaphylactic reaction to chomping a wasp, Diamond developed pancreatitis and then immune-mediated hemolytic anemia within a week! With her red blood cell count quickly dropping and headed into the Labour Day weekend, Diamond was transferred to Espanola Animal Hospital for treatment and overnight care. IVIG treatment was institute...d immediately and her red blood cell count immediately stabilized and she quickly recovered. This generous gift was reported on previously on our facebook page and has helped numerous Northern Ontario patients quickly recover from this severe life-threatening disease. Diamond has been to our hospital before. Last year she was seen here for emergency spinal surgery after becoming acutely paralysed from a herniated disc. Thankfully she recovered fully from that incident as well. Thanks so much to Dr. Bedhun from Black Road Veterinary Services for entrusting us with Diamond's care!

This Was A Good Place To Be Last Week If You Were A Dog With A Torn Meniscus! Last week over a 2 day period 4 dogs had their meniscus arthroscopically repaired during their TPLO surgeries at our hospital. This may not sound like that big of a deal but it is. While meniscal repair has been the standard of care in human patients for a long time, this is a rarely performed procedure in our canine patients unfortunately. The meniscus is an important structure and currently when... it is damaged it has to be removed or released, which has serious long-term consequences to our patients. Our hope is to change that and we've been working on a technique that is repeatable, reliable and can be performed by an average surgeon with average skills in about 8 to 12 minutes. It looks like we may be very close to achieving that goal. Herc, a 65kg dogue de bordeaux, was one of the recipients of that repair. Other patients that have had repairs recently have ranged down to 20kg. All of this week's patients also had an internal brace augmentation which will hopefully help also protect the repair while it heals. Everyone is back home now and doing well.

Miss Murphie Is SO Happy She Can't Stop Smiling!! Miss Murphie was in to see us for her 8 week post-op recheck after a knee reconstruction. We're pretty sure she is the happiest dog we've seen in a long time! She could not stop smiling, moving or wagging her tail, which was a big improvement over the three-legged lame dog that we saw 8 weeks previously! She looked great, is all healed and now back home still happy and smiling :)

Not Sure How Much Smaller We Can Make These... This summer was mostly the year of broken feet - and mostly in small dogs and kittens. Not sure what happed this year but we definitely got very good at fixing some extremely small bones. We also got some new equipment like a 1mm fracture plating set that helped us push the limits of what is possible to fix. Princess provided one such learning opportunity after a failed attempt at splinting (which by the way does not work and usually results in either a failure of the fracture to heal at all or a severe deformity, these need to be surgically repaired). We are happy to report that of the 25 or so patients that had these fractures treated in the past several months everyone single one is doing well!

Summer Ended With An Actual Bang For These Patients. We had a "fracturepalooza" at the hospital last weekend that saw us fixing a lot of broken bones and cobbling 4 patients back together last Saturday afternoon alone! Our staff have had to pull some crazy hours lately to put all these little guys back together and are getting a bit frayed around the edges. Fortunately everyone is doing well, back home and back in one piece. Be careful out there, we need a bit of a chance to catch up!

Hip Replacements Are Back On! The corona virus outbreak had a severe impact on our Canine Total Hip Replacement program and really put us back on our heels this year. We were actually one of the "top three losers" behind Ohio State University and Tufts University, who have some of the busiest programs in the world! But were back in action now! Last week we did 5 hip replacement surgeries, including one cat, for a variety of problems from long-standing injuries to severe hi...p dysplasia. Everyone is doing great and we are looking forward to a busy fall and lots of opportunities to help our little friends with hip problems! Thanks to patients Johny who couldnt wait to get in the hospital the morning of surgery, Topi who had his second THR, Orpheus who really challenged us, Willow our little cat with hip dysplasia and Maggie who had a dislocated hip secondary to significant hip dysplasia. See more

Northern Ontario For The Save! Meet Sunny, who made a drive up from Barrie last week to have his broken leg fixed here at EAH. Sunny lost an altercation with a moving vehicle and his owners rushed him to the local emerg hospital for care. Sunny had a fracture involving his femur commonly seen in young dogs that is probably one of the more simple repairs to execute. Unfortunately in Southern Ontario that simple repair comes at a cost of over $7000 and could not be seen for ...several days! Distraught and unsure what to do, a passerby walking their dog overheard their conversation and asked them what happened. The passerby (we dont know who it was), told Sunnys people that we had done surgery on their own dog and that they should call us. Problem solved, Sunny was seen and fixed on Saturday at a cost the owners were able to deal with and without any delays. He is back home now, doing great with full use of his injured limb. Thanks to our surgical team for putting in all of the crazy overtime this month to get all these dogs fixed and mobile again!

Are you passionate about animals and helping people find care for their pets? Are you looking for a rewarding position with competitive compensation and opportunities to advance? You may be exactly who we are looking for! Espanola Animal Hospital is seeking a full-time receptionist/office assistant. The ideal candidate should have excellent communication and organizational skills as well as an upbeat attitude. Most importantly, they should have a desire to meet the needs of o...thers. The responsibilities of a receptionist/office assistant include: Greeting patients and clients Handling office tasks such as answering phones, scheduling appointments, processing payments, maintaining medical records Anticipating the needs of our patients and clients to ensure a seamless and positive experience Minor animal handling, for which training will be provided Maintaining a clean office space and hospital Apply today via Facebook, email at [email protected], or in person at 138 Tudhope Street, Espanola! Starting wage is $17.00/hour plus pay-for-performance bonuses and uniform allowance. Applicants must be able to cover sick/vacation days as well as some long weekends/holidays. The successful applicant will receive 3 weeks of full-time training from Monday to Friday, and then begin their regular schedule. Candidates will be working weekends. Expected hours per week are 40-44 hours.

Another happy dog getting good use out of a reconstructed knee from an ACL tear! Thanks so much, always love getting follow-up on these dogs after recovery! Arthroscopic knee surgery + premium implants + internal brace = happy dogs

These Dogs Made Long Drives To Get Here! Access to veterinary care can be a real challenge in Northern Ontario and now COVID-19 has magnified that problem across the province. Hana came to see us from Thunder Bay to have a thyroid carcinoma removed this week, complicated in part because of issues crossing the Canada-US border right now. Onyx made the drive up from London because the wait time for a TPLO knee surgery in Southern Ontario right now is 2-3 months! ... While we routinely have patients coming to see us from very far away because they choose to do that (and which we greatly appreciate!!), these cases highlight how our profession is struggling right now to keep up with demand. If you are having difficulty accessing care where you are or trying to avoid traveling into large population centres, well do our best to help. Thanks so much to Dr. Tracy Audet at Northwestern Veterinary Hospital and Dr. Julius Liptak at VCA Canada Alta Vista Animal Hospital for helping make these referrals and getting these patients needs looked after in a timely manner!

Love it. Glad to see this!

This Little Kitty Fell Down and Went Crack Little Millie had an accident that left her with a broken leg and torn collateral ligament last week and came up to see us from Barrie. This is a special type of fracture that only young animals can get called a Salter-Harris fracture. In this case the growth plate at the end of the tibia separated, leaving an extremely small fragment of bone to work with. This is a challenging fracture in large dogs and Millie is a 1kg kitten! Regardless we got the fracture repaired and are now hoping that her collateral ligament injury will stabilize over time because right now it is too small to repair. Millie is back home now with her people.

Clinical Trial Announcement! Espanola Animal Hospital is launching a clinical trial to evaluate short and long-term outcomes for dogs having arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. Enrollment is open now and there are financial incentives for patients who meet the inclusion criteria. We are looking for patients with a history of forelimb lameness of any duration who are either undiagnosed or known to have shoulder instability and who may be surgical candidates now or in the future. Initial orthopedic work-up is at the owners expense. A discounted rate for surgery and no charge for scheduled follow-up visits and radiographs are provided for patients who meet the criteria and agree to participate. Anyone whose pet may meet the criteria and is interested in participating should call the hospital for more information (705)869-0090.

Two Hip Replacements Later...Zoomies Re-installed! Nala came to us last year as a less than 1 year old dog with really severe hip dysplasia. She was in a lot of pain and wasnt able to play or even walk properly when she came to see us. Nala is having a much better summer this year now that she is recovered from her surgeries. Her person sent us this awesome video last week and we look forward to seeing her enjoy many more summers with her new hips!!

Espanola Animal Hospital Gait Analysis Lab Now Open For Business!! After many months of construction, we are now set up and collecting TekScan data on our patients! The TekScan is a pressure sensitive walkway that allows us to acquire gait analysis data on dogs and cats. This is a very expensive research-quality piece of equipment that will help us diagnose our patients, track their progress post-operatively and collect data for clinical research projects. Kind of like the ...way your mechanic hooks your car up to the computer, when we "hook" your pet up to this computer it will tell us what each leg is doing with respect to weight-bearing and stride length and velocity. It is a highly sensitive piece of equipment and can acquire accurate data even on very small patients. It will also pick up things that cant been seen even by the best trained eyes! Numerous clinical trials are planned so watch for announcements in the coming months that your pet may be eligible for! See more

More Broken Feet!! This seems to be the fracture of choice this year - we've seen about a dozen of these in the past 6 weeks or so! This little puppy tested the limits of what is possible, weighing in at 1.7kg! We were able to just fit the very smallest wires that are available to repair these fractures. Makenna is a 10 week old toy poodle who was injured at play. Thanks so much to our friends at Cassells Animal Hospital for entrusting us with his care (and all the others :) !).

Otis is a very sweet and very special boy who has been entrusted to our care. He is fighting hard against IMHA and is lucky to have many people (and their dogs!) fighting alongside him. Dogs with IMHA typically need several transfusions and these cases can really put a strain on our blood bank. The need for canine blood dramatically increases in the summer time. If you have a dog who meets the donation criteria, please consider having them donate blood. Someones best friend... is counting on it. <3 Donor criteria: - between 1-10 years of age - UTD on core vaccines - currently on heartworm prevention - not eating a raw diet - at least 30kg Please call or message us with any questions or to schedule a donation.

More Broken Feet!! This seems to be the fracture of choice this year - weve seen about a dozen of these in the past 6 weeks or so! This little puppy tested the limits of what is possible, weighing in at 1.7kg! We were able to just fit the very smallest wires that are available to repair these fractures. Makenna is a 10 week old toy poodle who was injured at play. Thanks so much to our friends at Cassells Animal Hospital for entrusting us with his care (and all the others :) !).

Congratulations To Our Research Team! Members of our clinical research team were major contributors to this study that was published in Veterinary Surgery recently. This study describes a new surgical procedure and implant system for managing cruciate ligament disease in toy breed dogs. Dr. Rocheleau and Dr. Hulse have developed and published a technique guide for this procedure for training surgeons as well. This will be a busy year for our clinical research team, who collectively have three other publications in various stages of peer review and numerous other projects also in progress. Thanks so much to our co-investigators from Texas A&M University and Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University on this one as well as Arthrex Vet Systems for sponsoring the research!!

Don't miss the last of our "Ask An Expert" segments tomorrow on CTV Northern Ontario! If you missed the first two, here are the links: Pet Mobility https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1923103... Aging & Arthritis https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1943144

Saturday Night, 7pm, Cat Needs Help Thanks to our dedicated staff who after a very long week of very late nights came through again for Zolah. Zolah had a mishap with a missed landing in a window sill and ended up with a really bad problem. This is a Monteggia fracture - one of the most challenging situations in veterinary orthopedics. Just for funzies, factor in the fact that Zolah is a small cat and the ulna is also dislocated, not just the radial head. This situation just cant be put off until its convenient, so our staff yet again made some sacrifices to make sure Zolah will walk again. Great job all, and thank-you again. Also our thanks to Dr. Paul Sidhu from Airport Animal Hospital in North Bay for entrusting us with this challenging case!

Dont miss the last of our "Ask An Expert" segments tomorrow on CTV Northern Ontario! If you missed the first two, here are the links: Pet Mobility https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1923103... Aging & Arthritis https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1943144

Great story posted by our friends at Arthrex Vet Systems. Laney continues to do well a year later!

Surgery Is Very Tiring For Kittens! Fuzzy was here last week to have a fairly rare congenital defect repaired. We have been monitoring Fuzzy for months to try to let her get as big as possible before attempting repair. She had a congenital defect in her diaphragm called a peritoneo-pericardial hernia that has been allowing her abdominal organs to slide through her diaphragm and collect around her heart! At her last visit the hernia had suddenly become much larger and it was... time to act. It was discovered during surgery that her entire diaphragm was basically split in half and had allowed almost ALL of her abdominal organs (liver, spleen, stomach, intestines, colon) to prolapse into her chest! The organs were replaced into the abdomen and the defect repaired so that can no longer happen, resulting in some pretty dramatic before and after xrays. She is now recovered from surgery and back home. Thank-you to Dr. Baran from Sudbury Regional Cat Hospital for referring Fuzzy to us. See more

Cute Dog, But The Foot Needs Work! Bear is young pomeranian who presented to us a few weeks ago with a really broken foot. This is a common injury in small dogs and can be challenging to treat because of the limited amount of bone available to hold implants. Thankfully there is a pretty reliable technique called a SPIDER to fix these that was developed a number of years ago by our friend Dr. Noel Fitzpatrick. Because Bear is still growing he got "half a SPIDER" so that we dont interfere with his growth.

Benign Doesnt Mean Harmless! Lexie came to see us from Barrie a few weeks ago for a second opinion on a very large mass involving her entire left side. The mass was previously diagnosed as a lipoma, which is a common benign tumor seen in middle-aged and older dogs. Because it is a benign tumor, the owners were advised to ignore it - repeatedly, over a long period of time. As the mass continued to grow, Lexies owners felt this just wasnt right and decided to seek care wit...h us. The mass had dissected between her internal and external abdominal oblique muscles, displacing her internal organs to the right and also extended under and over her ribs, compressing her diaphragm and preventing her from being able to breathe properly. Her respiratory rate was 60bpm when she was presented to us! The mass was removed, the massive defect left behind was repaired and the issues resolved pretty much immediately. Lexie is now "behaving like a completely new dog" and is back to her old playful and energetic self. Take home lesson: benign tumors are still tumors and have the ability to cause very serious and even life threatening problems. Also if theyre large enough they can be a source of discomfort from just carrying them around. Any tumor that develops an expansile or aggressive growth habit or that has the potential for causing disfunction should be addressed immediately.

Benign Doesn't Mean Harmless! Lexie came to see us from Barrie a few weeks ago for a second opinion on a very large mass involving her entire left side. The mass was previously diagnosed as a lipoma, which is a common benign tumor seen in middle-aged and older dogs. Because it is a benign tumor, the owners were advised to ignore it - repeatedly, over a long period of time. As the mass continued to grow, Lexie's owners felt this just wasn't right and decided to seek care wit...h us. The mass had dissected between her internal and external abdominal oblique muscles, displacing her internal organs to the right and also extended under and over her ribs, compressing her diaphragm and preventing her from being able to breathe properly. Her respiratory rate was 60bpm when she was presented to us! The mass was removed, the massive defect left behind was repaired and the issues resolved pretty much immediately. Lexie is now "behaving like a completely new dog" and is back to her old playful and energetic self. Take home lesson: benign tumors are still tumors and have the ability to cause very serious and even life threatening problems. Also if they're large enough they can be a source of discomfort from just carrying them around. Any tumor that develops an expansile or aggressive growth habit or that has the potential for causing disfunction should be addressed immediately.

This Is A Very Generous Gift!! We recently received a donation of IVIG that is a VERY precious commodity for veterinary patients. This is a very, very expensive product and is generally inaccessible to us - what is shown in the photo is worth over $10,000! In veterinary patients it is used to treat life-threatening autoimmune disorders that generally have a very high mortality rate. The most common of these such as immune mediated hemolytic anemia, also require blood transfusions. Combined with our transfusion medicine program, this IVIG will provide a potent tool for treating these patients and getting them back to chasing frisbees. The donor has asked to remain anonymous.

This is officially our favourite story ever! For those of you who struggle with your grade 1 syntax and font conversion skills it reads: "Once upon a time, my daddy bought us a dog. She is a miniature Dachshund named Moose. Last fall she needed surgery on her back. One morning she woke up and could not walk. Dr. PJ made her better. I love my dog.... The End" Also, mic drop. Awesome story Sawyer, thank you so much!!

First in Canada - Again!! This time it involves the new Nanoscope technology that is dramatically changing the way we diagnose and treat joint disease and perform surgery. Formerly called needle scopes, these extremely small scopes allow us to get into very small spaces we couldnt previously access and also allow us to quickly and inexpensively diagnose joint disease that currently involve more expensive and often invasive procedures. Previous needle scope technology was d...ifficult to use and had very poor image quality. The new nanoscope produced by Arthrex changes that dramatically. The image quality is excellent, the equipment is very user friendly and durable and it can even be used for some surgical procedures such as knee surgery in very small dogs and cats and spinal surgery to treat paralysis. We are making diagnoses in just a few minutes that other veterinarians were struggling with for months! Many patients have had early ACL tears diagnosed that owners would not have known about until they showed up much later with potentially catastrophic damage. This technology will continue to develop and change how we do things in the coming years and were thrilled to be on the leading edge of it!

This Matters To Patient Outcomes And Is Not Just For Show!! Minimally invasive fracture repair is flashy and cool and is a good way for any surgeon to show off some serious skill. Being able to place plates, pins and screws through incisions just a few millimetres long (or sometimes not even that) is really impressive. But that has nothing to do with why we do this. Minimally invasive repair when applied expertly and appropriately is just all around better for the patient. ... Advantages include less morbidity including pain and discomfort, lower complication rates, faster healing times and better cosmesis. Little Elliot here just healed a tibial fracture in 2 weeks. The same fracture repaired by conventional fixation would take 2 or 3 times that long to heal. So Elliot is now out playing like a puppy should thanks to minimally invasive fracture repair! See more

This Will Be The Last Time This Happens For A While... Last week we hosted Alecia, a second year vet student from the University of Minnesota for a preceptorship as part of her program. We had a great caseload for her and she was a pleasure to teach. She should be back in classes this week, but as we all know that is not a thing right now. Unfortunately the corona virus response has had impacts in ways that we are just beginning to appreciate. We have a very active educati...onal program at our hospital and host numerous students and interns throughout the year, in addition to our own resident student veterinarians and technicians who make up part of our staff when not at school. As the various universities and colleges have mostly suspended their structured academic activities aside from online lectures, Alecia will be the last student to grace our hospital for quite some time. This will be deeply felt by us all and the personal fulfilment and satisfaction that teaching brings us will not be an easy void to fill in the coming months. Our thoughts are with all of our students at various institutions all over the world who are struggling to deal with the disruption to their studies, in many cases complicated by vast distances from home. We will all have to work very hard to support them and help make sure they are able to keep up and be safe under tough circumstances.

This is a time of great uncertainty, for all of us. We want to be sure that there is one thing you dont need to worry about during this time where do I bring my sick or injured pet if everything is closed?. We never close. Broken bones, invasive tumours, respiratory distressnone of these conditions are going to wait because of the corona virus outbreak. These pets still need care. ... So how are we making these necessary vet hospital visits safer for you? Every day in this facility, we implant bone plates, we make surgical approaches to the lungs, we delicately remove disc material from around the spinal cord of a dog. Because of this, the facility is held to a higher standard of cleanliness. All high-traffic areas and surfaces are sanitized several times daily. Staff are constantly washing hands, and sterility is literally always top of mind. We all need to work together to flatten the curve. For clients, this means not attending our hospital if you arent feeling well. Limiting the number of people attending appointments, and washing your hands frequently. Please know we are here to make sure your pets have access to the care they need. If you have any questions or concerns, please dont hesitate to call us so that we can make sure to meet any special needs you may have. With our best wishes, The EAH team

Some of our crew were at the OAVT conference last weekend in Niagara Falls. Divide and conquer was the theme for the weekend. While our RVT and surgical co-ordinator Kali was moderating the anesthesia and neurology lectures, Lindsay was taking in the hospital management lectures and Bethany was splitting her time between anesthesia and emergency/critical care. Well done ladies, thanks for representing our hospital with the usual grace and style and bringing back a whole lot more knowledge to benefit our program!

In case you missed it... Check out the link below for the awesome news story CTV Northern Ontario did for our big announcement! We are so excited to be able to help even more pets run, jump and play again, and we cant wait to call Sudbury our home. https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1918257

Espanola Animal Hospital Announces Construction Of $3.5 million Referral Hospital! Espanola Animal Hospital is announcing the construction of a 12,000 square foot veterinary referral hospital in Sudbury! Located on a 2-acre parcel at the Hwy 17/Long Lake Rd interchange, the new facility will provide access to advanced surgical and medical care for Northern Ontario pets. See Alana Eversons report on the new facility on tonights news broadcast CTV Northern Ontario... The two-story facility will rival or exceed facilities in other parts of the province and will also function as an educational centre for other veterinarians and their hospital staff. The new hospital will feature an 800 sq.ft canine rehabilitation facility, complete with gait analysis equipment and underwater treadmill, a large radiology suite to accommodate multiple x-ray scanners, CT and fluoroscopy, an MRI, two large fully integrated ORs with telemedicine capability, ICU with expanded patient capacity and all of the peripheral facilities to support these operations. Other specialty services are planned and will be announced in the future. The second floor will house a client lounge, classrooms and lecture theatres, an orthopaedics laboratory and skills lab, staff offices and lounge and several rooms to house visiting specialists and students. Land has been cleared at this time and construction is expected to begin in the next few months. The expected completion date is November 2020. The new location will help make care more accessible, affordable and closer to many of the population centres in Northern Ontario. Espanola Animal Hospital currently provides advanced surgical care and imaging to approximately 500 patients per year and this is expected to escalate dramatically with the opening of the new facility. Watch for further announcements in the coming months highlighting some of the other changes we are working on bringing to Northern Ontario with this exciting new building.

Am I Gonna Point Again Doc!? Last week, this handsome young English Pointer named Cooper had an unfortunate entanglement with a vehicle (he lost clearly). Suffering two broken front legs and lots of abrasions, he got some intensive surgical management and nursing care (and lots of liver cookies - his fave!) Hes back home with his people now recovering from his injuries. Thanks so much to Dr. Lawrence from Callandar Animal Hospital for entrusting us with Coopers care.

Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery Techniques Being Developed At Espanola Animal Hospital Help Stella Walk Again!! A Boxer named Stella was the recipient of some cutting-edge surgery here a few weeks ago. Stella was seen for a 4 month history of spinal cord compression that left her barely able to walk without assistance. During routine surgery to correct this problem, the team encountered a situation that required the use of some techniques we have been working on developin...g over the past 6 months. Stella had a disc bulging into her spinal cord that was not a simple extrusion and could not be removed by conventional means. Attempting to simply scrape out this very tough and fibrous material was unlikely to be effective and could be potentially very dangerous. It needed to be cut out of her spinal canal very carefully and precisely, which called for some creative thinking. Using scopes and instruments normally used for arthroscopic knee surgery, Dr. Rocheleau and the team were able to very delicately and precisely remove the prolapsed disc from around her spinal cord without causing any damage. Stella is now at home recovering and already showing significant improvement. There are literally only a few veterinary surgeons in the world currently employing these minimally invasive spinal surgery techniques and using telescopes to perform these procedures. While very much in the early stages of development, we believe that this is the future of spinal surgery in veterinary medicine. Using scopes will allow us to perform these procedures better, safer, more accurately and help ensure complete removal of prolapsed disc material. Our team is very privileged to be able to participate in the development of these techniques. Thanks to Stellas people for taking the time to research their options and going to some significant lengths to get her to us!

"Hip And Run" Our vet student Aliisa got some unwanted extracurricular activities while on her "summer break" at the University of Melbourne. Aliisas own dog Topi hauled up lame a few weeks back and it was discovered that he has pretty severe hip dysplasia. So while on break she got to participate in and nurse her dog back from a total hip replacement. Surgery went great and Topi got a beautiful hip replacement, so there wasnt a lot of nursing to be done. Now she soon has to run back to vet school to start her second year.

Congrats To Our Research Team! A new surgical technique has been developed in collaboration with faculty from Texas A&M University to help treat cruciate ligament disease in small and toy breed dogs. Our manuscript was accepted for publication in Veterinary Surgery, one our most prestigious journals! This is great timing because it also coincides with the launch of the MiniPushLock technique guide and video by Arthrex Vet Systems. Great job again team!

Safer, Better Anesthetic Management For Our Patients! We focus most of our social media attention on surgery that is after all what we do! Its flashy and exciting and cool. Less flashy, exciting and cool but arguably much more important to our patients is our ability to deliver safe and effective anesthesia. Both human and veterinary patients can and do die from anesthesia a fortunately rare event, but extremely concerning to both health care professionals and pet ow...ners that understandably causes a lot of anxiety. We are blessed in our practice to have some of the best and safest equipment currently available. Our main anesthesia machine used for all surgical procedures is a massive Draeger Primus. It is uncommon to find a machine like this even in a major multispecialty referral hospital. In human hospitals, this machine is used to provide anesthesia to premature babies undergoing major surgery! It measures every vital parameter that is monitored during anesthesia - heart rate, ECG, blood pressure, invasive blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, airway pressure, tidal volume, CO2 levels, and even measures the amount of anesthetic gas being exhaled by the patient! All of these readings are displayed on three large monitors that are visible from anywhere in the surgery suite. The machine can also deliver multiple different types of inhalant anesthetics, including one of the newest, safest anesthetics available called sevofluorane. Sevofluorane is very expensive and often used for anesthesia in cardiac patients because it doesnt impact cardiac output and patients recover from sevofluorane very quickly. In fact, we frequently see cardiac patients for routine procedures that would otherwise be done by their regular veterinarian but need more advanced anesthetic management. We have very highly trained staff who are able to manage these high-risk patients safely and effectively. Most impressive, and perhaps one of the most important features is the adaptive ventilator and the on-board computer that manages it. This is definitely not equipment that will be found in a regular veterinary practice! The ventilator gives us the ability to perform thoracic surgery in a more safe and effective manner for cases like diaphragmatic hernia repair and mass removal. But our other cases benefit as well sometimes. If a patient isnt breathing enough or taking large enough breaths, the on-board computer will sense this and kick on ventilator-assist the computer will help them make up the difference for what theyre not doing themselves! We cant eliminate all of the risk to our patients but having access to this equipment definitely makes it much safer to deliver anesthesia to them. We know that this is the biggest concern that most of our clients have when theyre bringing their pets to us for surgery and we want to do everything we can to ease their concerns! See more

Ooh, Thats Small! Spinal surgery is one of the most rewarding services that we provide at Espanola Animal Hospital, but it can also be fairly traumatic to the local tissues and therefore harder on our patients recovery. A traditional approach to spinal surgery can involve some fairly extensive and somewhat brutal approaches to get the job done. As our surgical program was built around minimally invasive orthopaedics, its probably no surprise that Espanola Animal Hospital is working towards bringing minimally invasive spinal surgical techniques to Canada. While we are waiting for equipment to become available from the human market and transition into veterinary surgery, weve taken the skills we learned and applied them to the tools we currently have to shrink our incisions and minimize the surrounding soft-tissue trauma.

Another Successful Meeting! Kali, Aliisa and Dr. Rocheleau are back from the winter meeting of the Association for Veterinary Orthopedic Research and Education (AVORE) in San Diego this weekend. Dr. Rocheleau gave a lecture on surgical management of shoulder instability and got an opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues and had some meetings to move some other research projects forward. As usual it was a great weekend and was extremely productive. They always come back armed with more new info and tools to treat our patients with and this time was no different!

Special Guest From Australia Last week we hosted another student from the University of Melbourne. Petra spent a week with us doing an advanced surgical rotation and is now on her way back to complete her final clinical year. It was a pleasure having her and fortunately we had a full roster of some great cases and patients to teach with. Good luck with the rest of your clinical year Petra!