The K-9 Unit at a Lakewood Busti  Police Department needs your help now and to help with future needs for our beloved K-9! The K-9 is all funded through donations and is not calculated in the departments yearly budget with the Village of Lakewood! Below is an amazing story about Sarge who was in need of a lot of medical attention just after becoming part of the department. Synopsis below taken from the Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center-Shout-out to the entire team there for taking such great care of Sarge!! We really appreciate everything you did and continue to do! Lung Lobe Torsion (Twisting)-Sarge is an incredibly sweet 1+ year old German Shepherd who is a working police dog for the Lakewood-Busti NY Police Department. Recently his owner/handler, Sergeant Casselman, became concerned after a training session when Sarge became febrile, was vomiting and seemed painful so he sought care at his regular veterinarian where they aggressively treated Sarge for his signs. When he didn't seem to be improving over the next 24 hours despite treatment, Sarge presented to our emergency services on referral from his regular vet. He was still lethargic, very weak, could barely stand, seemed painful and had acute respiratory distress with abnormal lung sounds on the right side. Sarge was also still slightly febrile. After stabilization and taking radiographs of his chest that were concerning, we performed a CT scan on Sarge where it was determined that he had a lung lobe torsion (twisted lung lobe) in his right lung that were causing all of his signs. The condition causes lack of blood flow and air flow to that portion of the lung and can be fatal without surgical intervention. Sarge was taken to emergency surgery that Sunday and upon visual inspection the right middle lung lobe appeared congested and firm from the torsion. The right middle lung lobe was successfully removed. You may be wondering how can a dog have a portion of its lung removed and still live? Well, dogs (and cats) have 4 lung lobes on the right side (2 on the left side) and can function without all of them as long as the others are healthy which is why this type of surgery is possible. Sarge recovered quite well from the surgery that night and was stable, however he would remain in the hospital for several days because it's not uncommon to deal with expected complications from such a major surgery, which is exactly what he ended up dealing with. In any patient that has their chest cavity surgically opened for any reason, they then have chest tubes placed to allow our ICU staff to remove any fluid that accumulates in the chest cavity post operatively and this was the case with Sarge. To make matters worse Sarge was not only slightly anemic but more concerning was that he was dealing with low albumin. Albumin is an incredibly important blood protein whose main job is to keep the fluid portion of the blood in the vessels where it belongs. Albumin can drop for a number of reasons including but not limited to chronic disease, blood loss, excessive vomiting and diarrhea, or as was the case for Sarge, after a major surgery. Dropping albumin causes the fluid that should be in the blood vessels to leak out into the chest or abdominal cavity, and/or the limbs, the latter of which is known as edema. Sarge had both fluid building up in his chest cavity and edema in his limbs as a result. Albumin also plays an incredibly important role in helping the body heal which as you can imagine is essential after surgery. In order to mitigate the dropping albumin Sarge received both plasma transfusions (from donor dogs belonging to our clients) and canine albumin transfusions, both of which replaced the albumin he had lost. Slowly over the course of several days his albumin crept up and was no longer dropping. He was also eating well and the protein from food plays an important role in preventing the albumin from dropping further as well, as the body uses it to naturally create more albumin. The edema in his limbs was resolving, however we were still removing fluid from his chest several days later. While it was concerning, it was not unexpected and we simply stayed the course, and because Sarge was otherwise looking great clinically, we decided to pull the chest tube and allow the body to absorb whatever remaining fluid accumulated in the chest. After 9 days in the hospital Sarge looked like a new dog and was discharged on oral pain meds and antibiotics, as well as strict rest to allow for healing. When not working, he truly is the sweetest boy, full of love and kisses. Sarge even got into a bit of trouble while in the hospital as he decided to remove his own IV catheter despite having an e-collar on, from which he also decided to eat the gauze tie holding it in place. Smart police dog. At this point you are probably asking, what caused the lung lobe torsion? We honestly don't know but it can happen after a dog is exercising or exerting themselves as was the case with Sarge as this all seemed to start after a police dog training session. Luckily it is an incredibly uncommon condition, however deep chested breeds including German Shepards, like Sarge, can be predisposed to the condition and it often affects the right middle lung lobe as was the case for Sarge. It can be spontaneous (as was also the case for Sarge) or a result of trauma, cancer, respiratory disease or previous thoracic surgery. It remains to be seen what the future holds for Sarge as a working police dog. Sarge had his recheck yesterday for the first time since being hospitalized and he looks great! Has made a complete recovery and the hope is that he can continue to do his job as a police dog!