What was wrong with Trevor the inflated sausage dog?

Being a sausage dog, with shorter legs than the average canine, must be a little daunting at the best of times.

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But recently, a pet dachshund had even more to be anxious about when his owner discovered he had blown up, like a balloon, to three times his size.

Little Trevor had his human mum Fran, 49, beside herself with worry as this was no ordinary allergic reaction or bruising.

So why did this sausage dog end up looking ‘like a big fat seal’, as his owner’s daughter put it?

When she first found him, Fran hadn’t the foggiest as to why Trevor looked so different, and she rushed him to the 24 hour emergency vet.

Fran’s daughter recalls that ‘his whole body was like a blob and you couldn’t tell his face from his neck’.

The vets quickly diagnosed that the problem was related to Trevor’s breathing capacity.

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‘Whatever [the problem] was, it affected his breathing so we had to leave him there [at the vet’s] while they tried to find out what was wrong,’ Fran said.

It eventually transpired that Trevor had suffered a burst windpipe and air was leaking through to his skin and muscles.

Vet Michelle Coward explained: ‘Trevor was presented to us with signs of severe air ingress under the skin.

‘There were no external injuries that would explain how air had got under the skin, so we suspected that an internal injury to the airway or oesophagus could have been allowing the air to leak into the body.

‘Every time he took a breath, some of the inhaled air escaped through a hole in his windpipe around the muscles and fatty tissue under the skin, and X-rays showed the emphysema was worsening.’

Very luckily for Trevor, particularly considering how rare his case was, the vets managed to stitch the hole up and his recovery time was minimal.

The mutt is not expected to suffer any complications as a result of the problem, and the vets say he was in very good spirits once he recovered.

‘He’s a great character and everybody loves him. He was a pleasure to nurse,’ Michelle added.

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