And as far as you know, he's
never had a general anaesthetic before.
Yes, far as we know,
he hasn't, yeah.
I’l have a better feel when he's asleep.
Greyhounds are really muscly.
"Not much fat in their body, which means anaesthetic"
drugs are processed very differently to other animals,
We know it feels a bit funny.
Every time you think it's going smoothly,
they can just throw a curve ball
and you're all into emergency procedures.
not breathing, breath holding.
Good boy.
That's the way.
Good boy, come on.
In Sydney,
18 month old Greyhound, Caliban,
has arrived to see Audrey.
Good boy.
That's a good man.
Hi there.
Hi, Cali.
Come on in, i’ve got a consult room ready for you.
Come on.
Good boy.
Nat from Greyhound Rescue, has brought
in the former racing dog to be desexed.
And how did he come to your rescue?
He was surrendered
because he wasn't fast enough for racing.
And just because you weren't fast enough.
Might be a good thing because
you get to find a loving home.
he’s going to be an amazing family pet.
Blessing in disguise.
You can tell he's already a sweetheart.
He is a real sweetheart, yep.
I do have a soft spot for greyhounds.
"My sister Alison has a rescue greyhound called Billy,"
"and he is the sweetest dog you'll ever meet."
Hey, buddy, you’re having a snuggle on my tummy.
Cali is super cute.
"He's just one of those dogs that wants to meet everyone."
As soon as he sees someone coming his way,
his tail starts wagging.
And he's really beautiful.
And they love a good snuggle.
That's my type of dog.
He's not available
for adoption as yet because he hasn't been desexed.
"- We'll find you a nice home.
- Yeah."
You don't have to be fast.
Before Caliban can find a forever home.
He urgently needs desexing,
but it's going to be a challenge.
"He's a little bit of a special one because he's cryptorchid."
So his testes haven't actually descended.
So, they're hiding up there somewhere.
They’re somewhere in there for sure.
All right, let's have a feel on the back end.
Sorry, buddy.
I'm going in the kill.
"So definitely nothing sitting in the scrotal sac,"
both left and right.
They're not there.
Just feeling in his inguinal area.
Is that skin under his leg?
Even though dissections are very common
in a vet clinic, Kelly is a little bit complicated,
because of his cryptorchid.
His testicles aren't quite in the right position.
"They're not sitting outside in the scrotal sac,"
so they're either inside his abdomen
or somewhere in between.
And we've got to go fishing.
And as far as you know, he's
never had a general anaesthetic before.
Yes, far as we know, he hasn't, yeah.
Well, I’ll have a better feel when he's asleep.
Caliban must now undergo surgery,
but if Audrey can't locate his testicles,
he'll be at serious risk.
Oh, honey bunny, if there's testicles up
somewhere inside his body, they're at risk
of a whole lot of complications.
They could twist and become very, very
painful and even worse, turn into cancer.
"All right, well, I got to move him for surgery."
Hi, Bri.
Oh, hi, Audrey.
"This is Cali for Caliban from Greyhound Rescue."
"- He's a sweetheart.
- Hi, Cali."
He's only 18 months old.
So Nat’s brought him in for desexing.
So we’re going to pop him on fluids
and then give him his premed.
While discussing Caliban is necessary
to avoid life threatening problems like cancer,
surgery to locate and extract them is also a risk.
He’s already down.
Oh, okay.
Let's give you a little bit more.
That woke you up a bit.
"- You ok there?
- Yeah."
Greyhounds are really muscly,
not much fat in their body, which means
anaesthetic drugs are processed
very differently to other animals.
It feels a bit funny
every time you think it's going smoothly.
They can just throw a curve ball
and you're all into emergency procedures.
Also not happy with the ?????.
Tell me when we see a breath.
Not breathing, breath holding.
Minimal shallow.
I cant see in the blue.
Just be careful it’s not the heart.
That’s hard.
Heart, heart, heart, heartbeat.
Ok, so far so good.
Once Calibans vital signs have stabilised.
Just check there’s
no testicles here that would make me, see there?
What is that?
Audrey begins looking for the problematic testes.
Might be worth just doing a little incision and checking
If that's it coming through.
We can actually feel that there are two
rounded testicle like masses here.
So I think it's going to be worth us
just making a small incision in the skin,
to see if it is the testicle.
If it is, that will make the surgery a lot easier.
Fingers crossed.
Going slow, because there’s big vessels everywhere.
how do you feel?
It's not feeling promising.
We thought that may have just been testicle coming through.
But it looks like it's just a bit of fat.
We've got both testicles, actually
Absent, they're not in the scrotum.
Usually we'll see
"one might be still internal, but for Calis special case,"
"both of them have decided to not descend at all."
It's been quite difficult to locate Cali’s testicles today.
We did think that it was possibly in the inguinal region.
"So just in that area where it's coming through"
the abdomen to the skin and unfortunately that was just fat.
"So what I'll do is I'll just suture this up"
and then we'll go into the abdomen.
So you want to keep anaesthetic to a minimum?
Although prolonging the anaesthetic
will increase the risk to Caliban,
"Audrey must now perform even more invasive surgery."
Surgery gets a lot more complicated
because we have to go into the abdominal cavity.
So bigger surgery, bigger recovery.
greyhounds as you know, the anaesthetic can be quite risky.
Lovely Greyhound heartrate.
It's always a bit of a stress pressure,
if you're not going to find it.
Sometimes it can be really small
that it's really hard to find at all.
Not yet.
Almost, that looks a bit like a testicle.
There we go.
This is the biggest high really because you found it.
We're going to look in the same position
on the other side and bam,
there it is, thank you maam.
I'm really excited that the surgery
has gone well, and lucky for us,
we managed to find both of Cali’s testicles,
"which can be a really, really difficult task."
"I am also taking away a whole lot of other problems."
Testicular torsion, testicular cancer.
You know, he'll still be a man.
He's twitching here,
I think I'm going through nerves.
"So I'm closing up the layers of the abdomen"
"and then on to the next stress, which is the recovery."
I am noticing that Cali is bruising quite easily.
As well as the danger during surgery.
Greyhounds can also be at great risk
following an operation.
So to add to the mix of everything greyhound.
30% have a condition called fibrinolytic syndrome.
And this is a type of bleeding disorder
that greyhounds get post-surgery,
their clot breaks down really quickly
and that can cause severe bruising
or even bleeding to death.
One, two.
As we just don't know
which greyhounds have this disorder.
So we've got to be really careful when
they recover from anaesthetic and surgery.
Cali.
Good boy.
Hi Cali.
Looks like he's waking up now.
Thank God.
Good boy.
I'm pretty pleased with that anaesthetic.
It all went really smoothly.
He's a sweetheart and he's recovering really nice.
We have some special treats for you.
"- Been waiting all day.
- Poor thing."
Nervously waiting for Caliban to recover.
Is Nat from Greyhound rescue.
Who saved the 18 month old when he was
no longer wanted by the racing industry.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be quite a major surgery,
which is something that, you know,
"can definitely happen with this kind of procedure."
So it does mean he's going to have
a little bit longer recovery.
But at the end of the day, it's going
to be fine and we'll be able to find him
his forever home.
All right, you want to come out?
Let’s go see Nat.
She's waiting for you.
Hello, baby boy!
I’m even more snuggly than I normally am.
Good boy.
He’s been actually recovering really well.
So everything couldn't have gone any better than it did.
I'm really happy with the whole protocol.
And we found them both.
So we did have a bit of my work cut out for me.
They wanted to drop.
They just didn't quite get there.
Didn’t quite have the willpower, my friend.
Good boy.
You're ready to have a little treat
and give you a little snack.
Okay.
What have we got?
What's my mumma bought for you?
Oh.
Yum, yum, yum.
You want some more?
Yeah.
That's the way, good boy.
"We were really lucky to win the SavourLife Buddies grant,
"
"which meant that we were able to spend
"
$50,000 making upgrades to our rescue centre.
So we built these beautiful sensory gardens
to build trust with them and to explore new experiences.
And our Hounds love their treats,
which is a super bonus as well.
Don’t tell anyone.
I'm really happy with how everything's gone today.
The anaesthetics been nice and smooth.
The surgery was a success
and I'm excited to reunite Cali with Nat.
I'm excited to tell her the news
that he's ready for a forever home
and hopefully he'll have a happy life.
Yeah, good boy.
he's going to have no problems finding a home.
His temperament.
Absolutely adorable.
Yeah, he’s a big sweetheart.