Meet Odo
UPFRONT / PET HERO
17
Odo is a much-loved tortoise. She is about 55 years old, and has been with her current owners for the last eighteen years. She lives outside with a nesting box on the patio, and roams the garden where she feeds on leaves and flowers that she finds there. At the end of May her owners noticed that something was wrong… Odo had gone off her food, she seemed unsettled, and was scraping her bottom shell on the garden patio. She was also digging holes in the garden, and when her owner went to find her, Odo just looked at her in such a way that her owner knew that there was something wrong. And her owner had a pretty good idea what the problem might be as Odo has done this before – she thought Odo was egg-bound.
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So, an appointment was made and Odo was taken into the
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surgery at Isabelle Vets. After discussing the problem with the vet, Sarah Baird, an x-ray was taken and this showed that
We opened at the end of May and have lovely
the owners were indeed correct – Odo had six eggs lodged in
consulting facilities, great access and plentiful
her oviduct. Injections of calcium and oxytocin (a hormone
and easy car parking. We have several vets
to stimulate contractions in the oviduct) were given and Odo
and qualified nurses on site to help, advise and
easily passed all the eggs within an hour.
care for your pets and we can undertake many procedures on the premises as well.
Tortoises are fascinating pets, and can stay with you for a long time – Isabelle Vets have a few tortoises registered with them that are over a hundred years old! Female tortoises may try to breed and produce eggs even when there is not a male tortoise with them. After shedding the eggs from the ovary, if the eggs are not laid they can build up in the oviduct (a structure like a womb); this may be due to an obstruction (for example a bladder stone), misshapen eggs or pelvis, a lack of a nesting site or low calcium levels (the most likely cause in this case). The tortoise is then said to be egg bound. In Odo’s case, medical management worked well, but if this does not work, then surgery is indicated. This involves cutting through the underneath shell or plastron, but there are risks associated
The site is also home for the state of the art, ‘Computed Tomography (C.T.) unit’ which is linked to a specialist imaging centre in the UK to provide rapid and accurate diagnosis of many conditions that more routine procedures would find hard to diagnose. Our highly-trained operatives are there to help all pets in Guernsey. We have also built a hydrotherapy and rehabilitation centre. This wonderful, proactive way to get your pet back to health after injury or
with this surgery and it will take up to two years for the shell to
surgery, to help keep old arthritic dogs mobile,
regrow completely (tortoises do everything slowly!)
to reduce limb pain and to get fit dogs even fitter is worth coming to see and to discuss with our
Once back at home, Odo was eating well, and seemed much
hydrotherapy team.
happier. But she dug another hole and was seen feeling around in the hole with her front leg. But what was she searching for? - the owners put the eggs that she had passed in the hole, Odo felt them there and it seems that she was then satisfied that all was well, as she has not been back to the hole since. Odo is our Pet Hero for this month because she patiently allowed us to examine her and inject her without retreating into her shell and refusing to come out!
#16. JULY 2017. THE AQUA ISSUE
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