Miss Callie is a very special six to eight-year-old West Highland White Terrier that found as a stray by the City of Columbus Animal Control. She had a microchip, but the owner never registered it so when she had what they thought was a seizure in her cage they reached out to us at the Preston Cares Network Westie Rescue to pull her for $10 to get medical care as soon as her stray hold was complete.
When our vet looked at Callie, they quickly realized that there was something wrong with her heart and that her heartbeat was very irregular. It was beating very very slow; forty beats a minute. More tests were performed including an X-ray and an EKG. Those tests revealed she has Sick Sinus Syndrome. This syndrome is a condition in which the Sinus (the heart’s natural pacemaker) does not send regular signals to the heart to pump correctly. What animal control had thought was a seizure was Miss Callie passing out and coming too. Our vet consulted a specialist in Louisville, and after reviewing the test results, it was determined that she needs a pacemaker and as soon as possible. Our vet reached out to several teaching vet hospitals and collected quotes for the surgery. The closest and cheapest (and recommended) is Purdue University. In addition to the financial assistance we received from WestieMed, we also plan to fundraise through Facebook and our email list (as soon as the 4th is over) because we are expecting costs from $3,500 to $4,000. The total costs will also include the three days in ICU for recovering and adjusting the pacemaker, the testing that was already done, and the follow up care and trips to Purdue. Just through very limited word of mouth we have raised 150 dollars.
Miss Callie is one of the sweetest and kindest Westies we have ever had in our rescue. She wants to be around people and be held and wants to cuddle. She loves to sleep on pillows and gets along with the fosters Westies and cats. She knows several commands such as sit and stay, and leave it (well for a few seconds — she is a Westie after all) and is fully house trained. The vet said with this pacemaker she should completely recover and should have no more issues with the Sick Sinus Syndrome as long as the pacemaker is maintained each year. We hope to get Miss Callie this surgery so she can have a nice long life sleeping on someone couch enjoying the pet life.
Rachel Phelps
Preston Cares Network Westie Rescue
Update January 24, 2018
Thanks to the very generous grant from WestieMed, Callie was able to have her pacemaker surgery at the University of Illinois (IU). Just recently, she had her six-month checkup, and the vets were happy to find that the pacemaker is working really well. They have even cleared her to have her dental soon. Also, her heart looks stable and hasn’t shown any signs of enlarging or more damage. She will always need extra care and checkups with her specialists, but the pacemaker has given her a great quality of life back. She now loves to play, go on walks, and even nap on her new family’s bed.
During the trips back and forth to IU, she met her future mom which is a 2nd-year vet student at the university. It was a perfect match! Callie is able to live close to her heart specialists and she has a mom and dad who is very knowledgeable about her condition! She even has a Westie brother to play with!
Callie has accepted a “dog job” with the IU vet school. She attends community events representing the cardiac program and she is a teaching assistant for the dental department for first-year students to practice doing dental exams. The students are learning so much from Callie! This shows how this WestieMed grant is helping more than just this one dog but is helping train future veterinarians about health conditions.
Preston Cares Network