Lucy, the "itchy scratchy, wiggy" three-legged dog

My brother in law, Rob Fitzpatrick, has written a song for our family’s pet miniature poodle, Lucy.

It’s sung to the tune of the children’s song Head and Shoulder, Knees and Toes. The lyrics are “Itchy, Scratchy, Wiggy Dog.”

Lucy is a mess.

Ever since we adopted Lucy from the woman who rescued this three-legged poodle from an animal shelter outside Cleveland, Lucy has suffered from rotten teeth, ear infections, itchy skin and a never-ending propensity to bite her hind quarters.  Medicated shampoos, antihistamines, antibiotics and topical lotions offer little relief.

Of course, New York City is always ready to offer help to the seemingly endless supply of deep-pocketed pet owners willing to spend generously to correct Fifi’s overbite or restore Lance’s coat to its puppy-like luster. We took Lucy to a doggie dermatologist, who charged us $750 to rip a cell sample from her hair and skin with a piece of transparent packing tape, which they studied under a microscope to see if the infection was bacterial or yeast.  Novel, but damn expensive.

Several years and millions of scratches later, Lucy paid another trip to a vet this week.  Our goal in bringing her to see Dr. Thoulton Surgeon (yep, that’s his real last name) was to get her teeth scaled and to extract the rotten tooth.

Dr. Surgeon, who made a point of telling me he didn’t attend Cornell University’s veterinary college so he could sell expensive dog food, is a serious practitioner.  He looked at Lucy’s skin condition and frowned.  He then proceeded to share the contents of a presentation he gave a month earlier during the Veterinary Dental Forum conference in Boston, where he lectured about early successes his patients were experiencing with clinical trials of nitric oxide therapy.

Huh?

PLASON device - NO (Nitric Oxide) therapy

After assuring me he didn’t mean laughing gas (nitrous oxide), Dr. Surgeon wheeled in a machine about the size of a small cappuccino maker and explained the Russian-made Plason device could generate heat of 3,000 degrees Celsius.  But the cool “arm” of the machine emanated a steady stream of puffs that, when applied to lesions, seemed to kill bacteria, yeast and other cells that inhibit the healing process.

Lucy didn’t mind being blown on by the machine.  I loved knowing that a machine capable of creating a lightning bolt was being tamed by a doctor willing to buck the veterinarian establishment in the interest of science — and reducing Lucy’s wigginess.

We’ll bring Lucy in for a few months and let you know how the treatment progresses.

Unfortunately, the one promise Dr. Surgeon was able to make about the Plason device was that it could not stimulate her missing leg to regenerate.  “This isn’t stem cells,” he chuckled.