New Therapy Helping Keno On His Feet And In The Pool
December 13th, 2010 02:32 PM
Just as Keno’s story “The Comeback Kid” was published in North Shore Magazine last April, he underwent a sixth knee operation.
Keno, my SPCA-rescued German Shepard, had benefited from swim therapy at Kendall DeMenech’s K9H2O animal pool. We continued swimming and his acupuncture and Keno continued to smile but his recovery stalled.
Then fate stepped in. Dr Janice Crook of the Mosquito Creek Animal Hospital had a doctor from the United States come to learn how to apply acupuncture, and Dr. Crook picked Keno as their guinea pig.
Knowing Keno’s story, this doctor brought along a pamphlet for a Californian company called Vet-Stem (www.vet-stem.com) for me to read. At first I thought he was nuts.
“You’re telling me that we can help Keno’s knees with stem cells?” Turns out that’s exactly what he was saying. Dr. Crook did her research and took the course and became Canada’s first small animal clinic to do this procedure.
Here is how it worked. Keno went in Tuesday and was knocked out for about 90 minutes. From his shoulders Dr. Crook harvested samples of his fat and packed it up for delivery. FedEx picked the samples up the same day and that night the samples arrived at Vet-Stem. The fat was washed and from it they produced vials of stem cells (SC). The samples were delivered back on Thursday and at 1 p.m. August 7 Keno became one of the first dogs in Canada to receive such treatment.
The implantation was easy. Keno went under anesthetic, and Dr. Crook put a needle into Keno’s knee socket and injected a syringe of SC She repeated this procedure on the other knee and then injected a large syringe of SC into a main artery.
We were told that these cells could quickly help with inflammation and pain. As well, in time, they could re-grow some cartilage and in extreme cases maybe even grow some new bone.
It was Keno’s last shot. It was a long shot but it was a shot worth taking even though nobody knew if these claims were real. Well, imagine my surprise when five days later Keno, who had being carrying his right hind leg up in the air for some weeks, started to walk on all four paws.
We got to Tofino shortly after implantation and Keno walked to and from the beach, swam and had a ball. Then he returned to swimming at K9H20. I told Kendall what we’d seen but I don’t think she believed me. Then she saw that Keno was indeed standing on his back feet during stretches. She pointed out that his swimming posture had improved and that he was making a much fuller rotation with his back legs, “and he is swimming faster.”
Over the following weeks there were a series of small improvements. Keno didn’t stiffen up after swims. He was able to get up just a little easier and his puppy-like attitude returned to the point where he was back to jumping on the bed with me to watch Family Guy.
Come December, K9H20 will be opening a new pool in Burnaby. This pool will be in combination with The House of Wags daycare. For details call The House of Wags at 778 998 8499 or visit them at 3926 Grant St., Burnaby. Wags is inviting you to bring your dogs into meet Santa, who will be played by me, in early December. Call to confirm time and date.
Tom Cattermole is a North Shore freelance writer. Cattermole@telus.net
Copyright North Shore Magazine Issue Dec 08 - Jan 09
Keno, my SPCA-rescued German Shepard, had benefited from swim therapy at Kendall DeMenech’s K9H2O animal pool. We continued swimming and his acupuncture and Keno continued to smile but his recovery stalled.
Then fate stepped in. Dr Janice Crook of the Mosquito Creek Animal Hospital had a doctor from the United States come to learn how to apply acupuncture, and Dr. Crook picked Keno as their guinea pig.
Knowing Keno’s story, this doctor brought along a pamphlet for a Californian company called Vet-Stem (www.vet-stem.com) for me to read. At first I thought he was nuts.
“You’re telling me that we can help Keno’s knees with stem cells?” Turns out that’s exactly what he was saying. Dr. Crook did her research and took the course and became Canada’s first small animal clinic to do this procedure.
Here is how it worked. Keno went in Tuesday and was knocked out for about 90 minutes. From his shoulders Dr. Crook harvested samples of his fat and packed it up for delivery. FedEx picked the samples up the same day and that night the samples arrived at Vet-Stem. The fat was washed and from it they produced vials of stem cells (SC). The samples were delivered back on Thursday and at 1 p.m. August 7 Keno became one of the first dogs in Canada to receive such treatment.
The implantation was easy. Keno went under anesthetic, and Dr. Crook put a needle into Keno’s knee socket and injected a syringe of SC She repeated this procedure on the other knee and then injected a large syringe of SC into a main artery.
We were told that these cells could quickly help with inflammation and pain. As well, in time, they could re-grow some cartilage and in extreme cases maybe even grow some new bone.
It was Keno’s last shot. It was a long shot but it was a shot worth taking even though nobody knew if these claims were real. Well, imagine my surprise when five days later Keno, who had being carrying his right hind leg up in the air for some weeks, started to walk on all four paws.
We got to Tofino shortly after implantation and Keno walked to and from the beach, swam and had a ball. Then he returned to swimming at K9H20. I told Kendall what we’d seen but I don’t think she believed me. Then she saw that Keno was indeed standing on his back feet during stretches. She pointed out that his swimming posture had improved and that he was making a much fuller rotation with his back legs, “and he is swimming faster.”
Over the following weeks there were a series of small improvements. Keno didn’t stiffen up after swims. He was able to get up just a little easier and his puppy-like attitude returned to the point where he was back to jumping on the bed with me to watch Family Guy.
Come December, K9H20 will be opening a new pool in Burnaby. This pool will be in combination with The House of Wags daycare. For details call The House of Wags at 778 998 8499 or visit them at 3926 Grant St., Burnaby. Wags is inviting you to bring your dogs into meet Santa, who will be played by me, in early December. Call to confirm time and date.
Tom Cattermole is a North Shore freelance writer. Cattermole@telus.net
Copyright North Shore Magazine Issue Dec 08 - Jan 09
