North Central News - Local event helps offer insight

Local event helps offer insight

When Lois Arnold’s veterinarian said her dog Carmel had a big heart, it wasn’t a good thing.
   “I think I’m just going to get her a regular checkup,” Arnold said, “and the vet puts the stethoscope to her chest and said, ‘Wow,’ and I said, ‘What?’ And he said, ‘She’s really got a heart murmur.’”
   An X-ray confirmed Carmel’s heart was enlarged and she was in end-stage heart failure. That was when the cockapoo was 8; now she’s 14 after surviving open-heart surgery at Colorado State University.
   Arnold, a psychotherapist who lives in North Central Phoenix, didn’t even know dogs could get heart disease, let alone that it’s the second-leading medical cause of death for canines next to cancer.
   That’s why she’s organizing the fourth-annual Heart to Heart Pet-a-Rama walk-a-thon, set for 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 17 at Steele Indian School Park. It will include vendors, giveaways, an obedience circuit, pet/owner look-alike contests, agility demonstrations, the Great Dane Drill Team and the Petite Elite Miniature Horse Drill Team.

North Central resident Lois Arnold would have gone to the ends of the earth to save her beloved cockapoo, Carmel—but instead she traveled to Colorado so veterinarians could perform open-heart surgery on her pup (photo courtesy of Lois Arnold).

   One of the main goals is to educate pet owners about animal heart disease. Veterinarians and heart specialists—including Dr. Chris Orton, who performed surgery on Carmel—will be on hand to do free heart screenings and provide referrals.
   Another reason for the fair is to find homes for pets. Euthanasia is the No. 1 non-medical cause of death for pets, so a roundup of rescue organizations will be at the park with hundreds of dogs, cats, rabbits and rats up for adoption.
And the 2-mile walk-a-thon at the event raises money for the veterinary heart center at Colorado State University, which is the regional vet school serving Arizona students. Last year, nearly 500 walkers and 6,000 participants raised $83,000 for the school.
This year, the money also will help set up a “heart hotline” with information on where to get discounted cardiac assessments for pets.
   Arnold had never organized an event in her life, but wanted to give thanks for the additional years with her beloved Carmel.
   After the initial bad news from her vet, Arnold sought a solution. Carmel had mitral valve disease, the leading type of canine heart disease. She asked her vet about surgery.
   “I said, ‘People have valve replacement all the time,’” she recalled. “And he said, ‘It doesn’t work in dogs because dogs are very predisposed to blood clots forming from the surgery and they travel to the heart and create a pulmonary embolism.’”
   Not wanting to give up, Arnold surfed the Web for hours looking for another answer. As she was about to give up, she found Orton. He had done more than a dozen open-heart surgeries on dogs at that time. Two-thirds had survived and were doing reasonably well. Arnold traveled to Fort Collins a few months later, where Orton performed the operation.
   “Any time you try to do open heart surgery and valve surgery on a dog, that’s very challenging,” Orton said. “Small dogs like Carmel are more difficult than larger dogs.”
   And Carmel had just about every complication possible, Arnold said. Even after returning home, she continued to have trouble, as Arnold relates in her book, “What Do You Mean, She’s Just a Dog? A Love Story of and from the Heart … Surviving Open-Heart Surgery” (it’s available on Amazon.com and will be sold at the event).
   After months of vet visits and even a trip back to Fort Collins, Carmel finally pulled through.
   Heart surgery at Colorado State runs about $10,000 to $14,000, though Arnold spent the equivalent of “a couple of cars” on Carmel and all her follow-up care, she said. “This animal gives me joy every day,” she said. “She makes me laugh every day. I would rather have six-and-a-half years of joy than a Mercedes.”
   Orton said some pet owners tell him their friends think they’re crazy for getting open-heart surgery for their pets. But he makes no judgments. “Open-heart surgery and repairing heart valves is standard therapy in people,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time before therapies that are currently available for people are available for animals.”
   Not only that, the research he’s doing on mitral valve disease in canines could someday help doctors understand the cause of the disease in humans, he pointed out.
   Arnold never second-guessed whether or not to take Carmel in for surgery. She said she had a commitment to the dog just as people have commitments to take care of their children.
   “The people who understand, that’s great,” she said, “and the people who don’t understand, that’s perfectly OK, too. I’m just glad Carmel is my dog and not theirs.”

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