Tazz is a red kangaroo who lives with his family of dogs, people and two other kangaroos. He was bought at an auction in Missouri by Christine Dobratz when he was seven months old, and although he is now four feet tall, he is a lap roo at heart. He and his kangaroo pals, Buddy and Cricket, are gentle and friendly, and like visit elementary schools where they get lots of attention.

The three kangaroos enter their house by hopping up a ramp. In September Tazz somehow got stuck under the ramp and could not get out. When Dobratz found and released him, his back leg was obviously dislocated and he could not hop. She rushed him to a local veterinarian, where x-rays established that there were no long bone fractures, so the vet stabilized the leg with a wrap. When Tazz did not improve, Christine contacted Dr. Mike Huber, a large animal surgeon at the OSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital. He agreed to see Tazz and offer some treatment options, so Christine drove all the way from Kelso, Washington to Corvallis for a consultation.

“Once I met the doctors at OSU,” says Christine, “I went from feeling at a total loss from not being able to help him, to a new hope for his survival.”

Dr. Huber ordered a CT scan which revealed small fractures near the ankle joint, torn ligaments, and a dislocated foot. He consulted with two orthopedic surgeons in the OSU small animal hospital, Dr. Jeffrey Biskup and Dr. Jennifer Warnock, both of whom repair bones in dogs and cats many times a week, but had never worked on a kangaroo.

The three surgeons did a lot of research, and after much discussion of options, came up with a plan: attaching an external fixator plate for initial stability of the ankle joint, and insertion of pinned crossbars between the shin bone and foot. Christine supported the plan. “I felt so relieved with three doctors involved in his care, and knowing they were the best I could get,” she said.

Although anesthesia can be challenging with exotic animals, the surgery went well and Tazz recovered without incident. “He was not a very stable patient under anesthesia,” says Dr. Warnock. “Dr. Riebold and his team did a terrifc job of keeping him alive and asleep.”

Once he was out of surgery, Dr. Huber designed and built a custom-made bandage cast. “One of the biggest challenges was keeping him quiet, and preventing him from using his very dexterous hands to destroy the bandage,” he says.

Tazz is home and moving around the house. His cast was recently removed, but Dobratz will have to keep the leg wrapped for several months. [You can see a video here.]

“This case was a great collaboration between large and small animal doctors,” says Dr. Warnock. “Tazz is such a beautiful animal; those eyelashes are a mile long!”