A SPANIEL puppy fighting for survival due to an unusual birth defect is now living life to the full after specialist treatment at a County Durham animal hospital.

Owners Carolyn and Daniel Tyer, from Seaton in Cumbria, were left fearing for the life of their 15-week-old pup called Jip, whose inability to eat solid food and constant vomiting threatened his life, especially if he were to breathe in and suffocate on his food.

Now, the couple can barely believe the transformation in their precious pet after he successfully underwent delicate and intricate surgery during an unusual operation at animal hospital Wear Referrals in Bradbury, County Durham.

Mrs Tyer says it was a traumatic time but that Jip is now flourishing thanks to the expert care and treatment he received at Wear.

The Northern Echo:

She said: “Poor Jip was sick whenever he was fed any food that wasn’t mashed and he got so poorly and lost so much weight I had to puree all his food using a blender just so he could keep it down.

“I was feeding him like that up to eight times a day in a bid to keep him going but there were times when we thought he wasn’t going to make it.

“We were watching him lose weight and deteriorate all the time. We knew we either needed him treated or we were going to lose him.”

Jip’s vets suspected an uncommon condition called a vascular ring anomaly and referred him to the specialists at Wear Referrals, where Dr Jess Bacon and Professor Jon Hall took charge of the case.

Dr Bacon, a European College of Veterinary Internal Medicine resident, said: “We confirmed the problem was a vascular ring anomaly using a real time x-ray fluoroscopy which showed Jip’s aorta was on the wrong side of his chest.#The Northern Echo:

“In a normal dog, it is positioned on the left but Jip’s was on the right and this had caused a ligament to pass around his oesophagus and constrict it.”

The solution was surgery, with Professor Hall working alongside the anaesthesia and nursing teams, to cut the ligament and ease the pressure on Jip’s oesophagus, finally allowing the free flow of food from his mouth to his stomach.

Professor Jon Hall said: “It is a delicate surgery to perform on a small puppy with the heart and lungs moving around.

The Northern Echo:

“We made an approach on the left side of the chest between the fourth and fifth ribs, ventilating the dog so that he could breathe under the anaesthetic and then moving the lungs to the side to approach the base of the heart.

“Without our specialist anaesthesia team and experienced nurses, these kind of surgeries just wouldn’t be possible.

“The vagus nerve was moved to the side and the ligament identified between the aorta (largest artery leaving the heart) and the left pulmonary artery (the blood supply to all of the left lung).

“We tied it and cut it, releasing the constriction on the oesophagus, and then passed a tube along to make sure it was all freed.

“Everything went well. Jip recovered quickly and had stopped regurgitating within hours of the surgery.”