A couple of weekends ago I was called in to an emergency – a nine month old pup had run under the wheels of her owner’s car. She was in obvious shock and pain with what looked like a broken back leg. We x-rayed the pup to discover that, not only did she have a broken back leg, she also had a ruptured diaphragm.

The diaphragm is the large piece of muscle and fibre that keeps your chest separate from your abdomen. When animals get hit by a car the increase in pressure can rip the diaphragm and push the abdominal organs into the chest. This is a genuine emergency and we had to operate there and then.

It is tricky surgery as throughout the procedure we have to breathe for the patient as they cannot spontaneously breathe without a diaphragm once we make our incision into the abdomen. I was pleased with how the surgery went and once the pup was stable with respect to that repair we were able to perform orthopaedic surgery to repair the broken leg.

The pup is doing very well so far, although there is still a way to go. This case also served to highlight another pitfall of dog ownership: Pet insurance. No one expects this sort of accident to happen – but it can do and the cost of this sort of surgery runs into the thousands. Please remember this when you next see “get pet insurance” on your “to do list”.