Unbelievable vet stories: Three couplets of Golden Retrievers with connected links

Sunday Feb 15, 2015

Some of my cases come in twos within a short period of time?

In the first couplet, two 13-year-old  Golden Retrievers passing dark red vaginal discharge in December 2014 and January 2015. Both suffered from  the same diseases called open pyometra.

Then yesterday, a second incident of timing occurred. Two Golden Retrievers came in one after another, one with lameness and the other with gigantic swollen anal sac areas.  Being uncommon in urbanized Singapore where over 90% of the residents live in apartments, meaning that big breeds like Golden Retrievers are rare, I was surprised to see 2 goldies as my first 2 cases.

In addition, there are around 70 small animal practices and so this makes the chances of seeing 2 goldies in a row much less.

In the 3rd instance of couplets, it was as if some Divine powers gave me an opportunity to take images for my comparative anatomy of anal sacculities. The Golden Retriever in the 2nd incident has two bulbous anal sac areas - a very rare situation which I am sure most small animal vets would not have encountered came in. It was like finding treasure in medical research. I took images and a video to document this situation.

I was wondering how I could compare this dual swelling with another Golden Retriever with anal sac impaction but not with such a gigantic swelling. The next day, a Golden Retriever came in came in with anal and tail end skin inflammation.

This was a case of anal sac impaction as the smelly brown oil expressed by me from the anal sacs shot out with a buzzing sound. This presence of oil astounded the owner and splattered onto my white polo shirt sleeve. I had used tissue papers to cover up the anal area before expression of the sacs but still, the volume of dark brown thick smelly oil was copious and explosive. This Golden Retriever permitted me to take an image of anal sac impaction without the gigantic swelling as in the other Golden Retriever in the second occurrence of couplets.

These are true but unbelievable vet stories of Golden Retrievers cases in Toa Payoh Vets. I have the images and the videos to substantiate my findings.