Kidney Donor Dog Has a Change of Heart

Saturday, August 25, 2001 - USA

BRANCHBURG, NJ — A dog scheduled to become America's fifth canine kidney donor decided to forgo the honors and escape from his new family last week.

"Tom", a one-year-old Belgian Malinois, ran away from his new owners, the Cohens, one hour after they brought him home.  Larry Cohen, a doctor, and his wife Stephanie, a teacher, had purchased Tom from a breeder in Virginia for $1000 because they needed a kidney donor for their six-year-old ailing pooch "Foster".

Foster is suffering from kidney failure and requires an organ transplant to save his life.  The operation, which presently can only be performed by one California clinic at a cost of about $12,000 USD (£8,500), was postponed while Larry, Stephanie and their two children searched the entire town of Branchburg.

"Missing" posters and notices were distributed around the neighborhood and in local newspaper advertisements in order to elicit the assistance of townspeople, but when the reason for their search became public, the family came under intense criticism.

In the history of canine kidney transplants in the USA, two out of four have been successful, while in the two other cases the recipient died.  Reportedly, none of the donor dogs have ever suffered ill effects.

Tom was eventually captured after a four-day hunt, and the Cohens again plan on proceeding with the operation.

Says Stephanie Cohen: "Our dogs give us a tremendous amount of pleasure.  We wanted to get that dog back safe and sound.  We wanted to get a dog and save a life."

Tom the dog would rather have a second opinion.
(Drama re-created by Scoop staff www.DogsInTheNews.com)

UPDATE September 27, 2001:  Foster received Two kidney transplants on Sep. 14 (Tom, unsuccessful) and again on Sep. 18 (a second donor dog with a heartworm problem), costing the Cohen family a total of $30,000.  The Scoop regrets to inform you that both kidney transplants were unsuccessful, and Foster died Tuesday, September 24, due to complications related to chronic kidney failure.

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