Photography by Jennifer Silverberg
Remember Trooper, who was only 5 months old when he was dragged a mile down I-55? Six surgeries and a new home restored his trust in the world. Now Trooper’s 6 years old, active, happy, and well-loved. His knees still plague him, though, so he comes regularly to the pain management center at the Animal Medical Center of Mid-America (located within the Humane Society of Missouri’s sunny new Best Buddy Pet Center). He heads straight for the laser therapy bed, and as soon as he’s wearing his goggles (er, doggles), he lies down and prepares to bliss out. The laser penetrates deep, prompting his body to release endorphins and calming the inflammation that creeps back into his knees.
Photography by Jennifer Silverberg
Black-and-white Sadie is another patient: She’s had PRP—platelet-rich plasma—therapy for her arthritis. The procedure involved drawing some ofSadie’s blood, spinning off everything but its platelets, and injecting them directly into the painful joint. “Joints don’t have much blood supply, so it’s hard for them to repair themselves,” explains Dr. Travis Arndt, assistant medical director. The platelets’ growth factors and proteins are reversing Sadie’s joint damage and restoring healthy tissue.
In the next room is Herbie, a long-haired Chihuahua who’s recently managed to lose—metaphorically speaking—a ton of weight. Now he stands resolute inside a glassed enclosure while it fills with warm water, then begins a determined trot as the underwater treadmill rolls. “He just chugs along,” says Arndt with a grin. “He’s kind of fun to watch.” The water provides just enough resistance to help Herbie build strength and stamina without inflaming his joints. “Little dogs have a lot of problems that go unrecognized,” Arndt notes, “because they’re not seen as athletic and they don’t get much exercise” sitting on laps.
It took a few weeks for another client, Acorn, to acclimate to the underwater treadmill, first just listening to it run and smelling the water from a safe, dry distance. Acorn, you see, is a cat, rescued from a hoarder who’d kept him in a rabbit hutch. He was born with a genetic condition that caused his kneecaps to pop out of place, and confinement in the rabbit hutch had prevented his muscles from strengthening. “He’d army crawl on the floor instead of walking,” says Arndt.Orthopedic surgery corrected the problem, but then he needed to build some muscle. “We weren’t sure how to motivate him into the treadmill—he was indifferent to treats and toys—but it turned out that he loved being able to move freely for the first time; it just felt good.”
A Labrador retriever who’s hobbling need only stand on the stance analyzer for Arndt to know how she’s distributing her weight, which joints she’s favoring, and which are taking the burden to compensate. Her person might think the problem’s an old elbow injury, but Arndt can use an infrared camera to see beneath the skin, mapping exactly where the inflammation is. Other pain management therapies include acupuncture and chiropractic.
The first challenge, Arndt says, is recognizing the signs of pain. Humans bitch, moan, and whine, but other animals don’t. “Usually the signs are subtle: changes in attitude, eating, bathroom behaviors,” he says. Even stiffness isn’t always obvious at first. “And about the last thing you’ll see is the animal crying and whimpering.”
Photography by Jennifer Silverberg
Vets and human companions are getting better at reading the signals, though. The center has treated 806 patients over the past year, easing pain in backs, elbows, hips, and knees. HSMO president Kathy Warnick happily rattles off other stats for the first year of the new Best Buddy Pet Center: “Adoptions are up by 67 percent. Animal intake is up 40 percent. The number of lost animals returned to their people is up 37 percent.” The main reason, she thinks, is that the center is big, bright, and highly visible at the corner of Page and Schuetz. “Handshake and Howdy” get-acquainted rooms offer breathing space and calm, so the animals relax and behave more naturally. There are locking climate-controlled enclosures for nighttime drop-off of strays or surrendered animals, be they pigs or parrots or—this one was a tight squeeze—a Great Pyrenees. “You’d be amazed,” a staffer says dryly, “what people try to fold in half.”
The best of all reasons for increased adoptions is the improvement in healthcare: Animals who once couldn’t even be treated can now be healed. Separate intake and isolation areas prevent contagion, and tempered glass has replaced the medieval cage bars, cutting down on the spread of disease as visitors move from one dog to another, searching for the next member of their family.
