Texas A&M Veterinary Team Saves Grand Prairie K-9 From Life-Threatening Infection
Story by Megan Bennett, VMBS Marketing & Communications
As a police K-9, Kane was no stranger to saving the lives of others. But when the 9-year-old Belgian Malinois developed a severe, antibiotic-resistant skin infection, it was his turn to be saved by the Texas A&M Small Animal Teaching Hospital (SATH).
Kane was hospitalized at the SATH for nearly two months, during which he underwent multiple surgeries, faced several complications, and recovered from skin necrosis (death of the skin) on more than half of his body. Throughout it all, however, he fought to survive and was always excited to see his handler, police officer John Killian, who visited Kane nearly every other day.
“Kane’s just like us, he’s an officer, and we weren’t going to give up on him because it was tough or because it was going to take a long time,” Killian said. “We were going to do pretty much whatever it took as long as there was a chance he could recover. He never showed any signs of giving up, so that’s why we never gave up.”
An Award-Winning Career Of Service
Kane has faithfully served alongside Killian in the Grand Prairie Police Department since May 2017.
“He’s only ever been assigned to me and he’s the only dog I’ve ever been assigned to,” Killian said. “We’ve been working together for the past seven-and-a-half years.”
When Kane is off the clock, he’s a loyal and loving family dog who enjoys playing with Killian’s daughters and German Shepherd, Pearl. On the clock, Kane is hardworking and focused solely on his job, which is to help and protect his fellow officers as they search for illegal substances.
“He’s trained to alert to five different odors of illegal narcotics,” Killian said. “Primarily, we use him on traffic stops if we have a reason to believe there may be narcotics in the vehicle. We’ll have him walk around the exterior of the car and if he alerts, we’re allowed to search the car for illegal items.”
Kane also helps the department by tracking and apprehending people who have committed violent crimes. One of his most memorable moments occurred in 2018, when Kane and Killian, along with the current assistant chief of police, Tim Sliva, were in a vehicle pursuit with a motorcycle.
“The pursuit went into Dallas and then, at low speeds, the man crashed his motorcycle and immediately took off on foot. He had a backpack on, which he flipped to his front as he was running away from us,” Killian recalled. “Kane ended up catching him and once we handcuffed him, we looked in his bag and found a loaded pistol right at the top, with a bunch of methamphetamines under it.
“We don’t know for sure that he was reaching for his gun, but we can only assume,” he said. “Kane got an award for saving the lives of Chief Sliva, myself, and another officer who was with us.”
When A Minor Issue Becomes Major
Throughout Kane’s life, he regularly developed benign, fatty cysts that could be removed easily by his local veterinarian. In early June, however, a small cyst on his shoulder became a much bigger problem.
“The cyst was removed on a Monday, and by Friday the incision site had started to turn black,” Killian said. “We started an additional antibiotic, but by Sunday morning it had gotten to the point where it was bleeding and oozing, so we took him to the emergency vet. That’s when they shaved the rest of his abdomen and discovered the black had spread all the way down to his back end. It was way more than anyone expected to see.”
Kane’s incision site had somehow been exposed to bacteria that caused necrotizing fasciitis, a rare bacterial infection that causes the death of soft tissue under the skin. Because of the seriousness of the infection and the speed at which it was spreading, Kane was referred to the SATH, where critical care and soft tissue surgery specialists would work together to fight the infection.
“Essentially, all of the skin on his chest leading down from where the mass was on his shoulder, and then all the way from his neck to his scrotum, had died,” said Dr. Vanna Dickerson, an assistant professor at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.
Leaving Kane at the SATH was difficult for Killian, but he was comforted by knowing that as long as Kane was willing to fight the infection, his Texas A&M veterinarians would be as well.
“It was a really hard time for me when he was down in College Station,” Killian said. “I actually stayed in a hotel for about half of the two months. It was extremely tough being away from my family, but it was worth it for me to be there for Kane.”
Even after he went home about halfway through Kane’s stay at the SATH, Killian drove three hours from Grand Prairie to College Station several times a week to see his best friend and partner.
“There was no other option,” he said. “He’s more than just a dog to me; he’s someone I love and truly care for, so I wanted to be there for him when he was going through this really difficult time.”
Taking Things One Step At A Time
During Kane’s first week at the SATH, his veterinarians focused on stopping the infection’s spread and removing the dead skin.
“Our first hurdle was that he had extremely large wounds,” Dickerson said. “About half of his body was essentially a wound, so he did end up getting more infection that was resistant to a lot of our antibiotic options.
“He was just very sick and had a lot of complications related to the fact that he was losing so much fluid through this wound,” she said. “We couldn’t really do any big procedures other than just taking care of his wound until we got him a little bit more stable.”
Once Kane had finally begun to stabilize, his team began reconstructing the skin around his penis and on his chest. They used a special technique that involves creating a “flap” of skin still connected to its blood supply and flipping it over to cover the areas where skin has died.
Soon after the successful surgeries, however, Kane developed an infection on his heart valve, which led to a blot clot in his brain that caused temporary problems with his sense of balance.
“Once we got him as stable as we could from the blood clot, he had his last big procedure, which was a really big skin graft,” Dickerson said. “We took some of the skin from underneath his neck and put it on his chest, as well as a couple of other smaller grafts to fill in the skin on his belly.”
After 10 days recovering from his final procedure, Kane was finally deemed healthy enough to finish recovering at home.
“Kane kept really good spirits throughout almost two months of very intensive care by the soft tissue surgery and critical care teams,” Dickerson said. “Not every dog would’ve come through that still able to wag its tail. It might have helped having John visit him so often to keep his spirits up.”
Looking Forward To Retirement
Because of how long he stayed at the SATH, Kane was cared for by more than 50 hospital clinicians, staff, and fourth-year veterinary students, who all came to say goodbye on the day he was discharged.
“Given how long he was hospitalized, everybody definitely became very attached, not only to Kane, but to John as well,” Dickerson said. “Everyone in the hospital was very excited to see him have a good outcome.”
Killian will need to keep an eye on Kane’s heart and skin for the rest of his life, but, overall, he recovered amazingly for such a severe infection.
“Anytime you have a wound on the skin, it never heals to 100% strength. His entire belly may be a little bit more sensitive to injury, but it’s completely healed,” Dickerson said. “We only see a few cases of necrotizing fasciitis a year and when it happens, it’s usually pretty scary. Kane is very lucky to be alive.”
After a few more months of narcotics detection work, Kane will get a well-deserved retirement.
“Once he retires, we’ll finally get to take some trips together and maybe go see the beach,” Killian said. “He’ll get to live at home, protect my family when I’m at work, and enjoy some downtime, finally.
“What the doctors did for Kane was nothing short of a miracle,” he said. “It was a huge team effort to get him to even leave the hospital, and the fact that things are still going well and he’s going to have a retirement means the world to us. We didn’t think we would get this opportunity and the fact that we do just makes us forever grateful to A&M.”
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Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu, 979-862-4216
