Dr. Karen Emerson and her Technician, Skyler, tell us about Hamlet the pug and his recent alleviation of breathing problems using Stenotic Nares.
Dr. karen emerson: good morning, sunrisers.
I'm dr. karen emerson.
And today i have with me, my technician, skyler, and this is actually her pug, hamlet.
Now hamlet presented a few months ago, skyler said that he was having trouble breathing.
You can hear a little bit of the trouble he has breathing.
He was snoring.
Just tell a little bit, skyler, what all was he doing at home at night?
Just keeping you up.
Skyler: yeah, he was keeping us up at night.
He just wasn't, he seemed really restless.
I couldn't really get him to exercise any because he couldn't breathe.
Dr. karen emerson: because he could not breathe.
Now, what was going on, is he had something called stenotic nares, and all that means is his little nose was so overgrown over his airway that he could hardly pass any air back and forth through his nasal cavities.
Dr. karen emerson: so of course, we talked about it.
I talked to her, we actually did something called a stenotic nares surgery, where i went in and i actually took out a piece of wedge on each nostril, and i sewed it back together and i opened up his nasal cavity so that he could move air.
Dr. karen emerson: this is basically a brachiocephalic breed.
This type of breed, you see in pugs, you see in pekingese, shih tzus.
You even sometimes see them in boston terriers, and you can see them sometimes in these smaller pit bull breeds.
And this is something that is quite common, and this is something that is easily fixed.
He is five years old, so he's been struggling this for a long time, and i'm so glad that we could finally do this.
He was actually able to get a good night's sleep and not wake himself up, trying to move air.
Surgery went great, he wasn't under anesthesia very long.
Dr. karen emerson: so if you have a brachiocephalic breed, one that's having trouble breathing, snoring a lot, one that just can't go out and get the ball because they can't move air, give us a call.
We do that procedure, it's very safe, and i promise, your pets will thank you.
I hope you have a great week.
Speaker 3: wcbi animal health with dr. emerson was brought to you by emerson animal hospital in west point.
Dr. Karen Emerson discusses the breathing problems in brachycephalic breeds like pugs, Shih Tzus, and Pekingese dogs. She also..