MSU celebrates miracle cases

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Melissa Malott didn’t hear the gunshot, but she knew something was wrong with her 17-month-old dog Ritzie as soon as she let her into the house.

Ritzie had been shot in Malott’s backyard, the bullet passing through her liver and lodging near her heart.

“She just laid real still in my arms looking at me like, ‘Fix it mom, fix it,’” Malott said.

Malott rushed to MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, where veterinarians performed a surgery that saved Ritzie’s life. More than a year later, Ritzie was one of about 60 pets honored Saturday as a medical miracle at the MSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital’s annual Celebration of Life.

“You know, without them, she wouldn’t be alive,” Malott said.

About 100 pets were nominated by faculty and invited to attend the event based on medical obstacles they overcame. Their owners drove from cities such as Holland and Gaylord, bringing their miracle pets on leashes.

Among the pets in attendance was Harry, a golden retriever from Bloomfield Hills, who lost 20 pounds due to digestive problems. Benny, a collie from the Kalamazoo area, underwent surgery after his gall bladder burst at MSU. Baxter, a golden retriever from Kalamazoo, went through several rounds of chemotherapy after developing cancer.

During the Saturday event, hospital director Pat LeBlanc read testimonials from pet owners who recalled dogs that became their best friends, helped them through family deaths and stood by them when they had seizures. LeBlanc said the event, which is in its sixth year, makes MSU’s veterinarians see the positive impact they can have.

“We really look forward to this day every year because it gives us a chance to see the pets with their hair grown back, no tubes sticking inside of them — see them reunited with their family in kind of a loving environment,” LeBlanc said.

To Bianca Buffa, the program coordinator and a first-year veterinary medical student, the day was a reminder of why she is attending veterinary school.

“You spend so much time with your head in the books and you don’t get as much interaction with the patients,” she said.

“It made it all worth it — all those hours you study.”

LeBlanc said the veterinarians love to see the bond between the pets and their owners — a bond he said is the reason many of them became veterinarians. Many owners called their dogs a part of their family or a best friend.

They said the dogs sleep in their bed at night or that their children are upset because they have photos of the animals in their homes. They said their dogs will take a lot of secrets to their graves.

Malott, who didn’t go to work the day Ritzie was in the hospital, said she’s never before had the bond she shares with Ritzie with another dog.

“I can hold her in my hand and she just found her way right into my heart,” Malott said.

“So she sleeps with me, she won’t even let me go to the bathroom by myself. She’s just such a part of our life I can’t imagine it without her.”

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