After undergoing surgery on his cleft lip, 17-week-old Lentil was examined by his doctor.
Lentil, a 17-week-old French bulldog puppy who once had to eat from a tube, is now able to happily eat from a bowl after his surgery at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine on May 28.
Born with a bilateral cleft lip and a cleft palate that included the soft palate in the back of his mouth, Lentil had a “unique combination of congenital defects,” according to John Lewis, an assistant professor at Penn Vet’s Dentistry and Oral Surgery Service. Lewis and Alexander Reiter, also an assistant professor at Penn Vet, performed Lentil’s surgery last month.
Since his birth in February, Lentil has gained status as an internet celebrity with over 85,000 “likes” on his Facebook page, “My name is Lentil.”
“Part of it is just that he is so darn cute,” Lewis said, “and part of it is the catchy name that his foster mom came up with. I think that everyone has really become attached to that name.”
Lentil is more than just cute, though. “He is full of energy and a very strong-willed little puppy,” Lewis said. That’s why he will become an ambassador for a currently developing program that will partner with Penn Vet and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Diana Sweeney, a parent liaison in CHOP’s Department of Plastic Surgery, works with Lewis and Lentil’s foster mom, Lindsay Condefer, on the program.
The program aims to bring canine patients with craniofacial defects to children with similar conditions. Penn Vet and CHOP hope this will help children to see how dogs are affected by similar problems and how those dogs adapt.
The program’s first event will be held on July 17 when young patients from CHOP will go to the Vet School to meet dogs and their owners. The night will be funded by a grant received from Penn’s Center for Human Appearance, founded and directed by professor of plastic surgery Linton Whitaker.
The dogs will also be incorporated into Team Day every Thursday, a time when 10 specialists meet with a child and his or her parents to discuss the best course of treatment for the child. The program hopes that seeing a certified dog after these meetings will help bring smiles to the children.
Another part of this program, which is currently unnamed, involves stuffed animals and clay models. “Children don’t always understand the adult depiction of what you’re going to do to them, but when they hold an animal that has a halo on it, then they get it,” Sweeney explained. “They’re much more visual and hands-on than [adults] are.”
Sweeney also mentioned the importance of professor of surgery David Low and assistant professors of surgery Oksana Jackson and Jesse Taylor.
Lentil has already helped the craniofacial program. “He really enhanced and brought attention to all the good things that go on here,” Sweeney says.
Most of all, Lentil reminds children with facial differences that “there is something much deeper to who you are.” Sweeney further emphasized, “You are not your face.”
“The thing that is really neat about Lentil is that people tend to afford unconditional love to a puppy no matter what, no matter how they look,” Patricia Dodson, division manager of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Children’s Surgical Associates, commented.
“He’s become a little hero to so many people,” Sweeney said.
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