Giving Stories

For three days, “Leah,” a charcoal gray Cane Corso, or Italian Mastiff, with a white patch on her chest had not been breathing on her own. Hooked up to a ventilator in the intensive care unit of the WSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital, the machine delivered each breath to her weakened body. After so much time, her owner Holli Peters wasn’t sure Leah was going to pull through. “I thought about taking her off the ventilator, because her prognosis was not good,” she says. But on the fifth day, Leah started showing signs of improvement. She was starting to breathe on her own.

Roya Eshragh and Gyan Harwood of Vancouver, British Columbia, wanted a cat. So they did what many animal lovers do; they went to their local shelter to adopt an older animal in need of a home. They fell in love with an orange tabby and named him “Chester” (he had previously been called “Cheetoh,” but they thought he looked more like a “Chester”). On January 30, 2012—Chester’s adoption day—his life changed forever.

On a Sunday morning in October 2012, Tara Johnson and her husband heard their dog “Juno,” a 4-year-old Husky, whimpering several yards from their house. They ran to find her lying on the ground not moving. Although they couldn’t see any bite marks through her fur, they did see saliva on her neck.

“That would be typical of a wolf attack,” said Johnson. “We’d had several wolf sightings near our house a few months before she was injured.”

“Mia,” a bassador (Basset/Labrador mix) and therapy dog, was diagnosed with lymphoma in February 2012, just five months before her 10th birthday. She received several rounds of chemotherapy at the WSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital and is currently in remission. In July, Mia with her canine family members celebrated her birthday by feasting on meat and cream cheese cupcakes.

When most people think of veterinary care, balance balls and underwater treadmills don’t often come to mind. But physical rehabilitation is one of the key services we offer to our patients to help them feel better faster.

While working in a private clinic in Melbourne, Australia, Canadian-born veterinarian Dr. Kevin Choy of Vancouver, British Columbia, saw a lot of elderly patients and he noticed something.

Joe and Barb Mendelson wanted to give to the WSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital. When they were told that the hospital desperately needed a new CT scanner, they didn’t hesitate.

In the summer of 2008, while fishing near Juneau, Alaska, Dave and Eddylee Scott found a lump on the top of their 7-year old Golden Retriever’s head. They made a quick call back home to their veterinarian, Dr. Lance Campbell (’99 DVM), who advised them to take “Cassie” to a clinic in Juneau and have the lump removed. The Southeast Alaska Animal Medical Center removed the tumor—a benign multilobular tumor of the bone—but within 3 weeks the tumor returned.

Students can now watch ultrasounds, radiographs (or x-rays), and other procedures more easily thanks to a new large screen TV monitor from a generous friend of the college. Before the WSU cardiology group received the monitor, veterinary students crowded around a small computer screen or viewing window. Now students can view procedures more easily and more students can watch procedures at the same time. Students will also be able to watch medical procedures, such as fluoroscopy, in real time.

The WSU neurology service’s new Electrodiagnostics machine will help make advanced muscle and nerve disorder diagnoses thanks to a generous friend of the college. Electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction velocity (NCV) are two of the medical tests veterinarians will be able to perform with the new equipment.