Pepe was a ten-week-old male Maltese. He’s a little tiny dog–a puppy with very sharp teeth. One day he was ambushed and chased by a raccoon. His owner saw what was going on, ran over, and scooped him up. Pepe was so frightened and nervous that when the owner picked him up, he bit him in the nose, hard enough to draw quite a bit of blood. The owner let go and Pepe fell to the ground where he landed very hard on his right side.

 

Pepe was unconscious on admission, barely breathing, with one pupil dilated and the other constricted. He was in bad shape from head trauma. He initially got oxygen and IV placement, and later started seizures. He was placed on seizure medication, in addition to more oxygen, which brought him out. Then we applied the Assisi loop to his head. When we applied the Assisi loop, his cardiovascular status improved–he went from tachycardia to more restful. He seemed to quiet down. Even given the fact that he was on seizure meds, he seemed to be more comfortable and indicated less pain.

 

We kept him hypothermic for a while, using ice packs on his head and neck, and applied the Assisi loop fairly consistently for 30-minute treatments every 4 hours. He had circling, torticollis to the right (neck and head twisted back tightly) which seemed to lessen with the Assisi Loop. With the Assisi loop, he was able to rise at the conclusion of the seizure medication, with less myosis and more menace. His pain scale was about a five (on a scale of 0-5), judging by his screaming when he tried to turn his head. In the end, he was down to zero.

 

We were not able to send the Assisi loop home with the owner, unfortunately. He had seven sessions with the Assisi loop initially and then went on to use also hyperbaric oxygen. His owner continues to care for him even though he did not gain his sight back. But as very bad as his head trauma was, the owner said that 4 months after his injury Pepe was “nearly normal; just a little spastic, and maybe he’ll always be that way, and we love him to death.”