20/09/2026
❤️ THE AMAZING RECOVERY OF ROSEBUD — AGAINST ALL THE ODDS ❤️
I’ve taken a little time before writing Rosebud’s story because I wanted to know that we were truly out of the woods before I shared it.
Just over two weeks ago, Rosebud arrived at The Barn Veterinary Clinic from 4Paws Welfare Organisation. She had been brought in simply because she was “sick.”
When we took her out of the crate, my immediate thought was:
Oh my God, this dog is so thin.
She was absolutely emaciated. She had a horrible hacking cough and was running a high fever.
We took chest X-rays, and that was when we discovered the problem.
Rosebud had a large piece of bone lodged in the caudal part of her oesophagus, behind her heart — essentially stuck in the last part of the food pipe before it reaches the stomach.
Even more concerning, the X-rays showed bone fragments associated with her lungs, as well as significant infection and abscess formation within her chest.
I phoned 4Paws and explained that Rosebud’s prognosis was extremely poor. But she was young, and despite how desperately ill she was, she was still fighting.
We decided to give her a chance.
Her first surgery
On the Friday evening, my plan was to go into Rosebud’s stomach and remove the bone from below
We opened her abdomen and then her stomach and managed to get hold of the bone.
But it was very, very firmly stuck.
There was already extensive damage to the oesophagus from the bone having been lodged there, and unfortunately, because it was so firmly embedded, more damage was caused to the already compromised oesophagus in the process of getting it out.
We did eventually manage to retrieve the bone through her stomach.
But once it was out, we were faced with an awful decision.
The damage was clearly far more severe than we had hoped, and at that point there were really only two choices:
Let Rosebud go while she was still under anaesthetic, or perform an emergency thoracotomy — open her chest — and see whether there was anything more we could possibly do to save her.
Opening her chest had never been part of the surgical plan.
She was severely emaciated, already critically ill and anaesthetised, and we did not have a mechanical ventilator available.
But Rosebud had made it this far.
So we decided to try.
We turned her over and performed the emergency thoracotomy.
Once we opened her chest, we could finally see the true extent of what had been happening inside her.
The oesophagus was badly damaged, there was significant contamination and infection within the chest, and shards of bone had become embedded in her lung.
We removed the bone fragments we safely could and cleaned out as much of the contamination and infected material as possible.
But then Rosebud crashed.
With her chest open, her lungs could no longer remain inflated normally, and without a mechanical ventilator to breathe for her, keeping her alive became incredibly difficult.
At that point, our goal changed.
We weren’t trying to achieve the perfect repair anymore.
We were trying to get Rosebud off that operating table alive.
We placed a chest drain so that we could remove the air accumulating around her lungs and allow them to reinflate. We did everything we safely could at that moment, and then we had to get her chest closed.
I also have to mention Noms our amazing new technician who on her 3rd day here, was absolutely incredible during that surgery. Keeping an anaesthetised, critically ill dog alive through an unplanned open-chest procedure, without a mechanical ventilator, was an enormous challenge.
There were moments when I genuinely didn’t know whether Rosebud was going to make it off that table.
But she did.
Somehow, Rosebud survived her first surgery.
And that was when the next fight began.
My hope was that if we could feed her past the tear in her oesophagus, we might be able to give the oesophagus time to heal.
Unfortunately, this approach generally only has a chance of working with very small holes.
Rosebud’s was very large.
And I was deeply concerned about how chronic the infection in her chest already appeared to be.
It quickly became apparent that without 24-hour care, Rosebud was going to die.
Air was continually leaking into the space around her lungs, causing them to collapse — a condition called a pneumothorax.
Basically, air was accumulating around her lungs and preventing them from staying properly inflated.
Her chest drain needed continuous suction to remove that air and allow her lungs to stay expanded.
So I stayed awake with her that first night.
And the next.
And the next.
Friday. Saturday. Sunday.
Eventually, I managed to organise a mobile suction unit so that Rosebud could basically come everywhere with me.
Where I went, Rosebud and her suction unit went too.
But then we faced another problem.
Although we were managing to remove the air from her chest, she began accumulating pus from the severe infection.
And when we tried to feed her, it became devastatingly clear just how severe the oesophageal damage was.
The contents were coming back up through the damaged oesophagus and leaking through the hole, continuously contaminating her chest with gastrointestinal contents.
At that point, medically, I knew what I probably should do.
I should call it a day and let her go.
But Rosebud had other ideas.
As you can see in the video below, there she sat in her oxygen tent, pipes coming out of everywhere, desperately ill…
…and she could still wag her tail.
After three sleepless nights with this little dog, I just couldn’t give up on her.
I contacted Dr Fanie Naudé at Johannesburg Specialist Veterinary Centre.
I knew that if Rosebud had any chance at all, she needed somewhere with the specialised equipment — particularly a ventilator — and an amazing surgeon who could attempt to finish what we had started and definitively repair her oesophagus.
Dr Fanie very kindly agreed to help me at the cost of the drugs and materials.
But he was also very clear with me.
The prognosis for a case like Rosebud’s was under 20%, and she was already so severely compromised.
Even with him helping at cost, we were looking at another R15,000–R20,000.
He told me that, realistically, it probably wasn’t worth doing.
I said:
“Give me an hour and I’ll phone you back.”
And for that hour, I tried to come to terms with putting Rosebud to sleep.
I knew what the sensible decision was.
But I couldn’t do it.
Don’t ask me why this particular dog mattered so much.
She just did.
Maybe it was those three nights together.
Maybe it was watching her sit in an oxygen tent with tubes and drains coming out of everywhere and still finding the energy to wag her tail when she saw me.
Maybe it was simply that every time her body seemed ready to give up, Rosebud herself wasn’t.
She had such an incredible will to live.
And somehow, I just couldn’t ask her to stop fighting when she clearly wasn’t ready to.
So I decided to put my own money in.
Who needs a new car anyway, right? 😂
Mine is currently off the road and I’m driving a borrowed car while saving for another one.
Rosebud got the car money.
And off we went to Dr Fanie.
That evening, he phoned me after her surgery.
And, for the first time in days, there was some good news.
Her oesophagus wasn’t quite as badly damaged as he had expected it to be, and he had managed to repair it. He felt there was now a reasonable chance that the repair could succeed.
Unfortunately, one of the lung lobes on her left side was so badly damaged that it couldn’t be saved and had to be removed.
But Rosebud had survived.
Again.
Three days later, I went to fetch her from JSVC and met all the incredible staff who had kept her alive for those three days — and who, unsurprisingly, had become just as in love with her as I was.
Then Rosebud came home to us.
But the fight still wasn’t over.
We continued battling the infection in her chest.
Cultures showed that she had two very resistant bacteria, and she had to be fed exclusively through her feeding tube for two weeks while we gave the oesophagus time to heal.
Rosebud thought very little of this arrangement.
Because Rosebud was HUNGRY.
Hungry, hungry, hungry. 😂
And it was absolutely amazing to watch her slowly blossom.
Day by day, this emaciated little creature started becoming a dog again.
She became brighter.
Stronger.
More demanding.
More interested in everything happening around her.
And increasingly determined to convince absolutely anyone who walked past her that she was starving and desperately needed to be fed.
Because apparently Rosebud hadn’t already been through enough, during all of this she also came down with biliary.
She had arrived covered in ticks and fleas, and she was also battling a massive hookworm infestation.
And she fought those too.
Just as bravely as she had fought everything else.
Tonight, I’m finally writing this because something happened that I have been waiting more than two weeks for.
Today I removed Rosebud’s chest drain.
She is eating by herself.
The infection is gone.
And finally…
❤️ ROSEBUD IS OUT OF THE WOODS. ❤️
It has been a very, very long just-over-two-weeks to get her to this point.
There were so many moments when I genuinely didn’t believe we would get here.
There were moments when medically it would have been completely reasonable to stop.
But Rosebud just never stopped fighting.
And I couldn’t not share the story of this absolutely extraordinary little dog who, despite everything that happened to her, just never, ever gave up.
I also want to say something about the financial side of Rosebud’s care.
I am not asking anyone to reimburse the money that I personally chose to put into her treatment.
That was my decision.
And I would make it again.
4Paws Welfare Organisation committed R5,000 towards Rosebud’s veterinary account. They have recently had a run of incredibly difficult and expensive welfare cases, and those bills add up frighteningly quickly.
So if anybody would like to help cover that R5,000 commitment, or contribute anything towards Rosebud’s bill, please contact 4Paws Welfare Organisation or The Barn Veterinary Clinic.
Any contribution, no matter how small, would be enormously appreciated and would help 4Paws continue helping the next animal who desperately needs them.
And as for Rosebud…
I promise I’ll put up another post when she is fat, healthy and completely unrecognisable from the little skeleton who first arrived at our clinic.
And somehow, I don’t think that’s going to take very long.
Because this dog has an appetite for life that not even the biggest bowl of food could satisfy. ❤️🐾
Keep going, Rosebud. You won this one.
— Dr Natasha Ross
The Barn Veterinary Clinic
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