Tim Hawk
Photography

Jar Jar wasn’t supposed to live. He could have died at any time with no warning.

The 10-month-old pure basset hound had rapid heart rhythm and his prognosis looked bleak. At one point his heart rate peaked at 425 beats per minute, the normal rate for a puppy is approximately 120.

But thanks to a rare procedure to correct his problem — and a non-profit group dedicated to helping basset hounds that paid for the surgery — there he was on a beautiful fall September evening at a Mays Landing park chewing a bone as his long floppy ears spilled over onto the green blanket he sat on with his soon-to-be-owner Valerie Mazzei.

In front of them, trees reflected off the still lake which painted a beautiful scene as a slight breeze blew over the lemon and white-colored hound whose life expectancy was six to eight months after he was first diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia in June.

Mazzei never gave up hope and sought out another medical opinion. Months later Jar Jar was at a veterinary hospital in Cincinnati, in the hands of Dr. Kathy Wright, a veterinary cardiologist, who performed a catheter-based procedure which is more commonly done on humans, to get him back to being a healthy puppy.

A few days after his Sept. 24 surgery he was a happy hound wagging his tail and greeting everyone that came within feet of his green blanket at Lake Lenape Park.

“He’s very friendly,” Mazzei said to two women who approached the droopy-eyed handsome boy looking to say hi.

Mazzei, the president of Tri-State Basset Hound Rescue, received Jar Jar from a 19-year-old New York City college student soon after he purchased him from a breeder in Nebraska.

“He lived with the dog for four months. As he had him he noticed there were medical conditions that were coming up,” she said.

He would have episodes where his heart would race very fast and then he would fall over. The teen took him to the vet where he learned the problem was severe.

Mazzei said his owner knew he would struggle to take care of the dog’s needs and didn’t want to send him back to the breeder for fear they would put him to sleep.

“He loved the dog, he really loved the dog,” she said.

So he began reaching out to rescues and that’s where the road to Jar Jar’s recovery began.

The puppy was surrendered to Mazzei by his owner on a Saturday morning at a Red Bank veterinary hospital and was immediately admitted. The Tri-State board of trustees agreed to help with the funds.

That evening he was sent home with a heart monitor to wear for five days. Mazzei kept a log of his activity during this time and he was put on medication. She said they didn’t know how bad it was until they quickly blew through all the medications.

“They would work for a few days and then they would stop working and we’d have to change the medications again,” she said, saying the dog would collapse and wouldn’t eat or drink when the treatment failed.

Mazzei remembers one episode that began at 5 a.m. when he began vomiting everywhere and couldn’t move. She could see his heart beating out of his chest and didn’t know what to do.

“I thought he was going to die for sure.”

She rushed him to the vet where his heart rate measured at 425 beats per minute. After he was stabilized she was told his life would be short, full of medications and there was nothing they could do.

She wasn’t going to give up that easily. “He’s a puppy and he deserved a chance at life.”

She found hope with Dr. Ryan Keegan, a cardiologist with Veterinary Cardiology Services in Ocean County, who told her in July about a procedure that may be able to help him.

It involved a surgery that is often performed in humans and modified for dogs by Dr. Wright, a cardiologist at MedVet Cincinnati, and has an approximately 97% success rate.

“It’s a curative procedure for a lot of dogs, for the majority of them,” said Keegan, who only knew of Wright’s reputation before this case.

But first they had to keep Jar Jar alive until his September appointment.

Arrhythmias usually can be controlled with medications, said Keegan, but in Jar Jar’s case it wasn’t working for him. As Keegan went through the process of tweaking his treatment it was apparent that a major step was needed or “it wasn’t gonna go well.”

“Had it not been for Dr. Keegan I would have never known that we could have fixed him,” said Mazzei.

Jar Jar was immediately accepted by Dr. Wright once she was contacted by Keegan. Within two weeks the suffering hound was in the back of Mazzei’s car on his way to Ohio.

He was diagnosed with an accessory pathway which is an extra electrical connection between the upper heart chambers and the lower heart chambers. The electrical connections control the timing of his heartbeat and this abnormality caused his heart to race.

“His heart raced so much it affected his heart muscle that it wasn’t pumping as well as it should,” said Wright.

Once Jar Jar was under anesthesia Wright had to find the bad pathway by inserting four catheters through his skin, and then ”fine mapping” — a tedious process to indicate the exact location of the abnormality.

With the tip of the catheter on the bad pathway, she then destroyed it by sending electrical energy which cauterized the extra connection.

The procedure is called radio frequency catheter ablation and her team has performed this approximately 132 times over 11 years. Because the equipment is the same that’s used on humans, it can be performed on dogs and other larger species, but not cats, Wright said, since the catheters are too big for their walnut-sized hearts.

The cost is between $5,000 and $6,000. Wright suspects that this abnormality was passed down to Jar Jar, “but his parents may not be showing any signs so it would be very hard for the breeder to know.”

Wright said that not as many people are aware that this procedure is available as she would like.

“With this successful ablation they don’t have to stay on those rhythm meds. They don’t need to go into heart failure.”

Draytin Freud, Jar Jar’s former owner, is happy he is doing so well and keeps up with all of his antics, said Mazzei. When Freud visited him before his surgery, Jar Jar recognized him and was so happy he peed on him.

Jar Jar will now have the opportunity to live a normal healthy life full of love, treats, bones, walks and visits to the BoardWaddle, the main fundraiser for Tri-State Basset Hound Rescue. The funds from this event and other fundraisers helped pay for his surgery and saved him from certain death.

It’s been a long few months for this docile pup who now is beginning to show his personality. He has more stamina, plays with other dogs and wants to chase cats. “He’s ornery now, he’s a bad little boy,” chuckled Mazzei.

For Mazzei, the past few months were filled with sleepless nights, tears and joy. The love Jar Jar will give back to Mazzei and her family and to all the people he will meet along his life’s journey is immeasurable.

“I would do it over in a heartbeat,” she said. “He’s precious, he’s a happy boy, look at him, how could I not do it.”