12/10/2024
⚠️⚠️⚠️ GRAPHIC IMAGES ⚠️⚠️⚠️
🩸Pictures of surgery and blood 2-6. Don't swipe if you're squeamish! 🩸
These photos show 2 dogs suffering from pyometria - something we see regularly and have mentioned in previous posts, so we thought we would explain a little about what exactly it is...
Pyometria (pyo) is a nasty bacterial pus-producing infection of the uterus. It can occur during a dogs heat cycle while the cervix is more relaxed and bacteria can ascend into the uterus and cause infection 🦠 It is life threatening and treated as an emergency 👩⚕️🚑
This can happen to any unspayed female but an issue we face here is that of well-meaning locals administering contraceptive injections to females in an effort to prevent them from reproducing. Unfortunately, this can often do more harm than good as the synthetic hormones create complications that can lead to the development of a pyo 😨
Pyometria can either be open or closed, with closed being the more life threatening of the two 😱
With an open pyo, the cervix is open, and the pus can slowly drain out of the body. It's still an emergency as an open pyo can turn into a closed pyo, but it just means that at least the uterus is not rapidly filling with pus with nowhere to go.
Pictures 1 - 3 show an extreme example of a closed pyo. In this case, the cervix is closed, and so there is no way for the pus to drain from the body, causing her abdomen to become destended as her uterus expands. This is extremely dangerous as without being able to drain, the uterus rapidly fills with pus and can eventually rupture, leaking into the body with the bacteria producing toxins that will likely be fatal for her.
The good news is that it is easily treated and prevented by performing a hysterectomy, i.e., spay/neuter ✂️ to remove the uterus entirely and eliminate the issue altogether 👏
This is another reason why sterilisation is so important for the females, and not only to prevent them from reproducing 🐶🐕
Both dogs in the pictures had a very lucky escape - without this surgery, they both surely would have died. Instead, they are now living happy, healthy lives 🫶
