Boise, Idaho (KBOI) — A police K9 in Boise, Idaho continues to recover after being shot and wounded during an officer-involved shooting. And the pooch has his fellow four-legged friends to thank for saving his life.
“We know of one round that went through the chest–lodged in the neck,” said animal surgeon John Chandler. WestVet in Garden City is set up to handle emergencies 24-hours a day, every day. But Dr. John Chandler said Friday was the first time they had worked on a police dog that had been shot.
Dr. Chandler said, “Jardo lost the left lung, two lung lobes. He had a significant amount of blood loss when he arrived.”
It took four doctors to save Jardo’s life, as well as a couple of four-legged donors. “In this situation we had blood that was donated earlier by one of the employee pets, cricket, and then, miles, is another one of the blood donors who happened be in the hospital so we were able to collect from miles immediately and transfuse basically on site.”
Whether Jardo will return to duty after his expected two month recovery is unknown, but Dr. Chandler said, medically, he doesn’t see why the canine officer couldn’t. “He’s himself. He’s Jardo. He’s up and moving around, which is pretty remarkable, given his injuries–the extent of the injury. That he can get up and get going again as quickly as he can but he is. As we keep saying a tough, athletic dog. He’s doing great.”
WestVet says for a dog to be a blood donor, it must be healthy, happy, weigh more than 50 pounds, be between one and seven years of age, be able to lay still for 10 minutes and be committed to donate for at least two years.
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