0122Singapore pet health and welfare educational for animal lovers, excerpts from The Glamorous Vets, Singapore, sponsored by  AsiaHomes Internet.

"Ma'am, I catch no ball"

"Good morning, Ma'am, my dog  throws up his food most of the time for many months. Is there any medicine to stop that?" asked the Provost Lance-corporal (LCP) at the dog inspection conducted by Lieutenant (Lt.) Melissa Chua, the veterinary surgeon in the Provost Guard Dog Unit.  

"Libra has such a good appetite and is now 1 year old. He is the thinnest dog in the Provost Unit.  Look at his backbone spine standing out from his back.  I am worried that he  will put him to sleep since he doesn't look good for the  Army".

"I mean," elaborated the LCP. "Which intruder will respect for a skinny military dog with all ribs showing?" 

The Provost Unit's guard dogs were usually the big frame strong type, fit for patrol duty at the air bases in various parts of Singapore from evening to dawn.

Canines don't suffer from anorexia nervosa, a medical condition seen in the female of the human species, some of whom will vomit out food after eating just to stay slim.  

"Does he throw up his food immediately after eating?" Lt. Chua enquired.

"Oh, no, no. Doc, it happens after some time. 
Especially when he eats a lot or has been exercised.  Maybe he has a small stomach?" 

The LCP continued:  "If he eats little, he does not throw up. He is a very good guard dog, very alert and eager to patrol but has no stamina".

"My Sergeant tells me that the Captain wants to put him to sleep as he is a disgrace to the Army.  Can any drug be given to cure him?"

The dog was examined.  Dr Chua said: "This condition cannot be treated by drugs. Libra has signs and symptoms of a PRAA called Persistent Right Aortic Arch. He has a ligamentum arteriosum which constricts the esophagus tightly so that food cannot pass through the esophageal stricture," the young veterinarian continued.

"Sir, er, sorry, Ma'am,  please....... please excuse me, I catch no ball "
said the LCP scratching his head. ("I catch no ball" in the Chinese Hokkien dialect means "I don't understand what you are talking about").

Hokkien was a major Chinese dialect in the army in 1976. The LCP explained politely,  "I don't know what lineament you are talking about. PPAA or was it the PAP?  ("PAP" refers to a well known political party, the "People's Action Party").  Anyway, this is too cheam  (profound) for me.

"I hope you can treat him, otherwise it will be the end of his life in 7 days' time. No appeals will be entertained; it is the Captain's orders," the LCP was despondent as he would be losing his best friend who had saved him from a viper attack during night patrols at the Tengah Air Base.

Libra was barking non stop at the veterinarian.  A type of harsh low terrifying bark that  certainly would frighten all intruders and he looked a ferocious guard dog not to be trifled with. 

Three questions remained topmost in the military veterinarian's mind. 

Question 1.  
Would Libra put on weight after the operation since his condition was diagnosed late.   Had the operation been done much earlier, he would have a better chance of putting on weight.

Question 2. 
Would the Army pay for the expensive surgery knowing that it was not guaranteed that the dog would put on weight? 

In any case, a new German Shepherd puppy would cost less than $1,000. It was definitely much cheaper to buy a replacement. 

Question 3. 
Who amongst the handful of veterinary  surgeons was competent enough to operate on such an uncommonly encountered congenital disease of the German Shepherd?

Lt. Chua had just graduated and was not experienced to handle such a major surgery involving the opening of the dog's chest and removing a ligament connecting  a big blood vessel from the heart to another big blood vessel of the heart. 

The answers to the first two questions were "no".  The Captain preferred not to spend money on operating Libra since no guarantees were possible.

He should have culled this yearling long ago but the platoon commander had said that Libra was an excellent fearless guard dog. He was not afraid of bullet sounds and explosions.   


Besides, the Army needed more guard dogs as more detention camps were being built to house the drug addicted teenaged national servicemen.

They were classified as the SUS or Soldiers Under Suspicion and would include other disciplinary cases too.

All were interned at the six  detention barracks, had their hair shaved bald and given green or white T-shirts and blue shorts. 

The words "SUS" were displayed on the T-shirts of these young men from all walks of life. 

There appeared to be an increasing number of AWOL servicemen according to newspaper reports.  AWOL or absence without leave involved a few thousand addicted soldiers in this post flowers, happiness and drug hippie era.

High barbed wired perimeter fences of the detention barracks had not prevented the desperate escapes to run away from the cold turkey treatment.  

Guard dogs like Libra could deter escapes.  A desperate SUS was said to have leapt on or over the circular coils of barbed wire to freedom.

For Dr Chua, her ideals were to save all the animals in the world. Devotion to dogs has caused this smasher with big  bright eyes and a slightly prominent nose in an oval shaped face, to spurn many suitors who showed great affection to her but had cast a damp indifference to animals.

Since no money would be available, would that mean Libra had seven days to live.   

Nobody would want to adopt this scarecrow of a dog. Who had experience and could operate on the PRAA condition in the dog?

There was one busy veterinary surgeon in private practice with the necessary years of experience in anesthesia and surgery to operate on Gemini.  Would he do it for free?

This Dr Foo was too busy finishing his cases and house calls after midnight every day. Many times, he would skip lunch. He would be paged so many times to perform Caesarian operations on difficult birth cases of birth in the Pekinese or toy breeds after midnight. 

Toy dog breeding was popular with Singaporeans in this period of time. Dr Foo was very energetic but how to reach his heart to operate for free, for the dog and for the Nation? 

Why should Dr Foo provide free services even though he did say he had not operated on PRAA before.

"Would you take the challenge to operate on this Army dog?" the young vet persisted again despite being turned down more times than she could remember.

PRAA was rarely encountered in Singapore and this would be a challenge to his surgical art. But there is no such thing as a free lunch in the real world. 

Dr Foo was asked several times until he must be weary of the pestering. 

He agreed to operate around midnight provided Dr Chua would assist him as an anesthetist. An X-ray confirmed that the usually narrow esophagus was dilated twenty times near the heart base where a ligament which should not be present was tightened around  the gullet like a rubber band. 

Food swallowed then accumulated and was thus trapped in front of the obstruction. The gullet then become bigger or dilated.



CLICK thumbnail to see normal gullet going direct to the stomach.

The filled up food and gas were later vomited out. Seven days to execution by lethal injection for Gemini.  Time was of the essence.  

Under general anesthesia, the dog's left chest was opened. The 8th rib was removed and the retractors opened the chest more to give more space to operate.  A throbbing heart of the most fearless dog in the Provost Unit was seen.

The lungs deflated immediately on opening the chest, but Dr Chua was pressing the anesthetic bag regularly to inflate the lungs. 

There was no mechanical ventilator, so Dr Chua was the ventilator cum anesthetist plus the intravenous drip nurse

The Electro-cardiogram (ECG) machine displaying the regular pattern of the normal heart waves suddenly showed abnormal pattern indicating that the heart was going into fibrillation and failure. The dog had stopped breathing.  

Tears were in Lt. Chua's eyes. Libra's heart had stopped beating. This was the end of a young dog's life.  A top guard dog who had stayed in an Army with lots of love but was condemned to death for being not "fit for duty." 

Emergency resuscitation and an injection were given by Dr Foo.

It was not the end for this experienced surgeon cum anesthetist who had performed over 50,000 surgeries cum anesthesia.   There were no veterinary anesthetic specialists in Singapore.

The heart and breathing rates returned to normal. 

The tick tock of the surgery's wall clock in the still of the midnight could be heard distinctly.  The ECG heart wave machine's regular beeping sound was comforting as this showed that the dog was alive. 

The short ligament was not easy to find but it was identified by the sharp eyes of Dr Foo.

It was tied up at both ends  and the middle portion transected to release the stranglehold on the gullet.

The food should now be able to pass through the gullet properly.

The surgery was more than an hour now but surprisingly there was no bleeding.  

Would Libra's lungs collapsed after the chest was closed with the last stitch?  "Inflate the anesthetic bag to the maximum with oxygen to expel all air in the chest cavity, while I put in the last stitch," said Dr Foo.

Dr Chua squeezed the anesthetic bag to the maximum to inflate the lungs.

But would there still be air in the chest cavity and would this pneumothorax would cause distress to the dog.

Would the lungs then collapse if the air was present, leading to death?

Within 30 minutes, the patient stood up, a bit wobbly. As if he had a long nap.

Libra was back for guard dog duty in one month's time. The Captain excused him from the strenuous air base patrol duty.  He could guard the SUS, the Captain decided.   

He did not vomit his food anymore. He put on weight and had much more energy. The SUS now had more respect towards this hulk of a guard dog now patrolling the perimeter friends of the Kranji Detention Barracks. 

"Thank you, Sir, for saving my best friend," saluted the LCP at the weekly morning inspection of guard and tracker dogs.  You could see the glow of happiness reflected in his eyes. 

"LCP Cheng, LCP Cheng! Dr Chua is not a 'Sir'!" shouted the Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) who was passing by and who had saluted Lt. Chua.

"This is a lady officer. Wake up your idea!  And you don't salute with 5 fingers in the Army.  This is the Singapore Armed Forces, not the Green Beret!!

See me in my office after the morning parade," 

"Thank you, MA'AM," LCP shouted loudly, but after he had put on his grey-blue beret, got both heels of his feet at 90 degrees to each other, stood upright in the "attention" posture, smoothened the wrinkles in his camouflaged shirt. 

He gave the appropriate salute with his right hand, smartly up and down in one second.

"It was the magic hands of Dr Foo who operated on him," replied the Lt who returned the salute with 5 fingers of the left hand slightly flexed, touched her left eyebrow and put down speedily.  

But the RSM could not reprimand an officer and a lady in public. 

He must remember to teach this high spirited subaltern who had saved the top and most disciplined canine in the Singapore Armed Forces how to reciprocate a salute later.

It was so much easier to enforce a high standard of discipline in the military dogs, he shook his head at Lt. Chua, trying to suppress his laughter and look stern as a RSM should be.

Updated:
03 Jun 2001