Only a few months old, Snoopy the beagle puppy wanted nothing more than to run out his zoomies with his new owner Debbie Suprenant of Queensbury, New York, who rescued him from an unsafe housing situation.

Suprenant noticed immediately, however, that Snoopy would require special care. “Just looking at him and his front limbs on the day I brought him home, it was obvious to me that something was wrong,” she said.

Snoopy was born with an angular limb deformity of his forearms. His two front legs bent outward, forming an S shape. This condition is most commonly seen among short-leg dog breeds like dachshunds or Shih Tzus, though breeds with extremely long legs, like wolfhounds, can also be born with it.

“A growth deformity like this gets more severe with age. Even at 10 months, Snoopy already had an extreme external rotation and other less severe deformities,” said Dr. Selena Tinga, assistant professor in the Section of Small Animal Surgery at the Cornell University Hospital for Animals.

If owners catch it early, there are more options for intervention. Left untreated, this deformity can lead to further deformation, joint pain, difficulty walking and arthritis.

Suprenant’s primary veterinarian at the VCA Adirondack Animal Hospital, in consultation with Upstate Veterinary Surgical Center, suggested that Snoopy come to Cornell and thus Tinga, who has treated many of these cases at varying stages due to her advanced special interest in 3D modeling and deformity correction surgery.

A deformity like Snoopy’s occurs when one bone of the forearm, the ulna, grows abnormally slowly. Because the ulna is tethered to the radius, this creates abnormal growth in the radius, too. “The lower ulnar growth plate is a unique shape and has a genetic predisposition to abnormal growth,” Tinga said. “It’s a fascinating condition to me because it’s the ulna that’s actually the problem, though we focus our treatment on the radius because the radius is the weight-bearing bone.”

Tinga determined that Snoopy would need surgery on each leg before his condition worsened. He was already starting to have trouble walking on certain surfaces.

“We had to align the entire leg, not just his forearm, from his shoulder down to his paw,” Tinga said. 

Using three-dimensional bone models from a CT scan of Snoopy’s limbs, Tinga determined that three or four cuts on each leg would be needed to align the bones. She used the models to create 3D-printed guides, which are small pieces of sterilized plastic. These are fit to his bone to guide both where the bones are cut and how they are repositioned. Then, standard metallic plates are used for final stabilization. “Surgeries like this require a lot of planning and practice, which makes everything in the operating room go that much smoother,” Tinga said.

That was the case for Snoopy’s procedures. The first operation on his right leg went well, and after a few weeks to recover and assess progress, Tinga’s team successfully operated on the left leg. Each surgery took approximately three hours to complete.

Suprenant was initially concerned with how Snoopy would endure two major operations. “I was scared,” she said. “I didn’t want to go through with it and put him through such serious surgeries, but I also knew his quality of life would deteriorate as his deformity worsened. So keeping that in mind, I knew it had to be done.”

Five weeks and two surgeries later, Snoopy’s legs had good alignment and began to heal. He recovered well from the procedures and had an appetite right away.

“Snoopy’s ‘new legs’ are truly unbelievable. What Dr. Tinga and her team did is just remarkable,” Suprenant said.

It takes approximately eight weeks for bones to fully fuse and heal, with strict rest for the first two — quite a feat with a patient like Snoopy. “Keeping a 10-month-old beagle puppy calm and resting has been the biggest challenge,” Suprenant said. “He’s highly energetic, and I do mean energetic. Beagle owners will understand.”

After a recheck at Cornell this fall to investigate a small but persistent wound over the left leg implant, Snoopy had the plates removed in November and is nearly fully recovered.

“He can go back to just being a dog,” Tinga said. Other members of Snoopy’s veterinary care team included small animal surgery residents Dr. Alberto Oramas, Dr. Hiroshi Miyagi and Jenna Menard, D.V.M. ’23, team members from sterile supply, radiology, anesthesia, surgery technicians and more.

“Everyone at Cornell that I have met or spoken with has been amazing,” said Suprenant. “I can’t thank everyone enough for the attention they gave my boy while he was in their care. Now he’s even more of an amazing, adorable and wonderful boy, and I can’t wait to see him being a puppy and enjoying life once again.”

Written by Melanie Greaver Cordova