Early Halloween Fun

Dewey took some time out from his busy schedule of scavenging for food, attending obedience class, and cuddling with Greta on the couch to model an absurdly cute fish hat...

Disabled Dogs Are The Tops!

Recently I was poking around the "Pet Care Library" on the Best Friends website and I came across an article about disabled pets by Dr. Virginia Clemans, the former chief veterinarian at the sanctuary. Although brief, it's full of great reminders that disabled animals can still have rich and enjoyable lives. I especially appreciate Dr. Clemans' observation that many special needs animals "are not aware of their disabilities" - how true! We have definitely noticed this with three-legged Dewey and other tripod dogs.

We also recently got a sweet note from Frankie, "the walk 'n roll dog" who zips around in a wheelchair as if she weren't paralyzed. Check out Frankie's inspirational story at http://www.joyfulpaws.com/ I am constantly amazed by the resilience of dogs like Frankie, Dewey, and Greta. They may have certain physical limitations, but there's still no limit to the love they are able to offer!

Diary Of A Dachshund Back Injury - Part 5

Dogs have the amazing ability to rebound from all kinds of injuries. Many Dachshunds who have experienced paralysis due to disc disease are back up and walking within days of treatment. Greta, however, was already an old girl - around 12 - when she went down, and this seemed to slow her progress significantly. Still, we refused give up on our patient. Thanks to continued hydrotherapy, she took her first steps outside of the bathtub approximately 5 months after surgery and we were THRILLED!

Diary Of A Dachshund Back Injury - Part 4

One month after Greta's surgery, we decided it was time to get her back outside for a bit of fresh air and our vet gave us the go-ahead. The private school behind our house provided the perfect lawn for our first outdoor excursions. To help Greta get around, we wrapped a scarf around her belly to hold her up - much like a little puppet! Using this "scarf walking" technique, Greta was able to hobble across the grass with a little help from mom and dad, while allowing all three of us to get some much needed fresh air and exercise.

At about the same time, we also decided to give up the diapers and pee pads and just express Greta's bladder instead. Our vet provided a tutorial, but warned us that it would be tricky because her bladder was so small. She was certainly right about that! It took several weeks for me to perfect my expressing technique, but once I did, it made a HUGE difference for all of us! Even though Greta was not entirely incontinent, expressing allowed us to get her back onto a predictable potty schedule that drastically reduced accidents. To this day, we still express Greta's pee and poop by squeezing her abdomen (I promise that it's not nearly as gross as it sounds!), and it has become an easy, routine part of our daily lives. For people in similar situations (or those of you who are simply curious!), there are some excellent tutorials online including this one:

http://www.dodgerslist.com/literature/Expressing.htm

Diary Of A Dachshund Back Injury - Part 3

If you have a downed doxie, hydrotherapy will undoubtedly become a big part of your life. This was definitely the case in our situation with Greta. At the recommendation of our vet, we began daily hydrotherapy sessions in our bathtub as soon as her sutures were removed two weeks post-surgery. In the beginning, the primary purpose was to take pressure off of Greta's spine. We also sat on the edge of the tub for endless repetitions of "bicycle legs" to help her maintain muscle tone in her back limbs.

After three months, we achieved a big breakthrough when she took her first wobbly steps in the bath! The buoyancy of the water allowed her to stand and walk long before she was able to regain her mobility outside the tub. From then on, we used treats to coax her into walking back and forth in the tub.

There are professional hydrotherapy / aquatic rehab centers for animals, but the expense of Greta's surgery left us with extremely limited resources. Fortunately, she's a small dog and our clawfoot tub was huge! Kiddie pools are also another option for people doing home hydrotherapy. Check out the following sites for more information about helping your doxie with home hydrotherapy:

http://www.dodgerslist.com/literature/watertherapy.htm

http://www.abledogs.net/poppy.html

Diary Of A Dachshund Back Injury - Part 2

The day after Greta's spinal surgery, we stocked up on supplies in anticipation of her homecoming. Our most useful purchase turned out to be a pair of cat litter pans that we referred to as the “cribs.” These were to contain our patient in a portable fashion, while protecting furniture and bedding from inevitable accidents.

The first few post-surgery days were agonizing. Poor Greta looked terrible with her partially shaved fur and big black row of sutures. Even worse, it was apparent that she felt as awful as she appeared. The narcotic pain patch seemed to make her disoriented and she couldn't keep any food down. We tried our best to keep her as comfortable as possible, but it was a continuous, exhausting challenge.

Potty time presented an especially tricky new challenge. Our veterinary surgeon felt confident that Greta had bladder / bowel control, despite her immobility. Since she couldn't stand, though, we had to hold her up and try to cajole her into going. As anyone who's familiar with Dachshunds knows, they are notoriously picky about "doing their business." This had been true for Greta before her injury, and it was even more of an issue afterward. Our struggle was compounded by the fact that we lived in a second story apartment and had to take her down a flight of stairs to get outside. More often than not, she began to pee on the way down - always before we actually made it outside. This where the cat litter pan "cribs" came into play. We lined them with pee pads and began to carry our patient around in them. That way, if she had an accident (which occurred regularly), it was contained and easier to clean up.

At night, though, there was only one option: diapers. To save money, we chose to forgo expensive doggie diapers and bought generic infant pampers instead. The only necessary modification was the creation of a tail-hole, which was easily accomplished with scissors. Keeping them on, however, was an entirely different challenge. No matter how tightly we secured them on Greta before bed (I even tried packing tape on a few occassions!), she always seemed to wiggle free by the morning - don't ask me how. As a result, we lined the bed with several layers of backup towels. All of this added up to create quite the complex sleeping situation and neither Michael or myself were getting much shut eye during those weeks...

Diary Of A Dachshund Back Injury - Part 1

Our beloved Dachshund, Greta, has limited mobility due to a spinal injury she sustained in July 2007. I am recounting it here for the benefit of other Dachshund / dog guardians who either have experienced, or are experiencing, a similar calamity. In the midst of Greta's crisis last year, I often turned to online support groups and forums and found them to be tremendously helpful. It is my hope that this account will be similarly useful and encouraging to others who are faced with the same challenges.

Last summer we were on a weekend trip to Canada when we received a call from our wonderful pet-sitter, Andrew. That morning Greta was sitting in an arm chair when she twisted around, lost control of her bladder, and went limp. Sensing that something was very wrong, Andrew put Greta down on the floor where she remained immobile. Fortunately Andrew was a one-time vet school student and knew right away that something had gone terribly awry. He immediately loaded our girl into the car and called us en route to the vet clinic.

As we frantically rushed home from Canada, Greta was transported to a specialty vet hospital for further examination. We we arrived that afternoon (after "one of the most grueling drives I've ever had to undergo" as Michael put it), the veterinary surgeon was ready to share the results from the myelogram: Greta's spinal cord was being compressed by a ruptured disk in her back, resulting in paralysis. Although many Dachshunds experience disc disease, this was particularly shocking because Greta had never had any back issues before. Since the onset was so sudden and severe, the veterinary surgeon strongly suggested immediate surgery. Without hesitation, we agreed.

We got to see our girl just before the operation. She was sedated and looked so small and vulnerable - it was an image I'll never forget. With heavy hearts, we settled into the waiting room and tried to distract ourselves over the next several hours with old copies of Dog Fancy and mutual assurances that "everything was going to be okay."

To our extreme relief, the surgery was completed without any complications. The vet staff were very understanding of our concern and they let us see our little patient in the recovery suite. Apparently, Greta's temperature had dropped (a common side effect from surgery), she was bundled up in an incubator, which, strangely enough, bore an odd resemblance to a microwave. It was a both a profoundly sweet and pitiful sight. We gave her as much reassurance as we could, but then there was nothing left for us to do but head home and leave Greta at the vet hospital for observation overnight.

Greta came home the day after her surgery with a six inch row of sutures and a transdermal pain patch. She was obviously extremely disoriented and uncomfortable, and those first few days were agonizing for all of us. Both of us, however, had accepted that this was only the beginning of a long road - it would be several weeks before we would know if Greta was going to recover from the paralysis of not, and there was a strict regime of physical therapy to begin...

Feisty Fidos!

Yesterday Dewey attended his very first training class - Feisty Fidos! The workshop was focused on managing on leash dog-to-dog aggression. Although Dewey is a delightful little chap, like all dogs, he does have his "issues." When he meets other pups in the neighborhood, he tends to be a bit bossy and overbearing. The same goes for joggers and kids dashing down to street to get to school on time. Additionally, none of this is helped by the fact that Dewey suffers from a serious Napoleon Complex!

Anyhow, we both learned a lot last night. Our instructor recommended a two-pronged approach of desensitisation and counter conditioning. The idea is to refocus the dog's attention and create a positive association with the sight of other dogs. Since this involves doling out treats, Dewey was a star pupil! When it was his turn to pass by Molly, the neutral dog, he was so excited about the bag of food in my hand that he barely gave her a second glance. Hooray for food motivation!

Promising New Prosthetic For Dogs And Humans!

I came across this article a few days ago and thought it was an amazing story with important implications for both dogs and humans. Like Cassidy, the dog featured here, Dewey is missing his right hind leg (how it happened is a mystery - our best guess is a car accident). Dewey's small size gives him a major advantage over big dogs like Cassidy, though. Smaller tripod dogs generally do better because they are lower to the ground and able to balance more easily. As a result, Dewey is able to get around really well - in fact, he zips around so quickly that many people don't even notice his missing leg until he stops to stand still! Still, this kind of prosethetic technology is desperately needed for many disabled dogs and humans, too. Let's all keep our fingers crossed for Cassidy and the NC State veterinary orthopedics team!

Implant Will Get Dog Back On All Fours
Procedure To Fuse Leg to Bone Holds Promise for Human Artificial Limbs
By Julie Henry and Alex Johnson

NBC News and MSNBC RALEIGH, N.C. - For the first time, scientists have implanted a prosthesis that will allow them to directly fuse an artificial leg into a dog’s bone, a procedure that could foster a breakthrough in designing next-generation artificial limbs for humans.

In the four-hour operation Thursday at the North Carolina State University Veterinary School, Denis Marcellin-Little, an associate professor of veterinary orthopedics, fused a titanium implant onto what was left of the leg bone of Cassidy, a 5-year-old German shepherd mix who lost his right hind leg several years ago.


When Cassidy is discharged and goes home Friday to Long Island, N.Y., his leg won’t look much different, except for the visible tip of the implant. When Cassidy returns in the fall, the prosthetic leg should be ready to try.


Ola Harrysson, an N.C. State engineering professor who developed the hardware, said he and his team were still working on computer models for the design. “Right now, we are designing a prosthetic leg for Cassidy that will have sensors in it to measure the force," Harrysson said. “That way, we can fine tune the strength.”


For Cassidy, the future holds the likelihood that he will be able to run normally again. Steve Posovsky adopted the dog after he saw him on the pet segment of a morning television show. Cassidy was “unadoptable” because he had only three legs, Posovsky said, but he felt their relationship was meant to be. “What his future was at that place was unknown,” he said. “I just knew deep down that I was saving a life when I took him.”


Posovsky began investigating what could be done for Cassidy almost immediately. In October 2005, he and his wife, Susan, took the dog to N.C. State’s vet school. Marcellin-Little first tried two conventional prosthetics, but Cassidy wouldn’t wear them. He then suggested the new procedure, called osseointegration, which he had been working on Harryson and other engineers at the university’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.


Marcellin-Little had previously tested it successfully on two cats, George Bailey and Mr. Fonz, but Cassidy’s surgery was the first time it had been attempted on a large animal.


Conventional prosthetic limbs use sleeves that are placed over the stump of a limb and secured on the outside. In the procedure Thursday on Cassidy, a prosthesis was anchored into the bone, much as an artificial tooth is anchored into the jaw so it remains stable and locked in place.
Below that is a section for the bone to grow into so it can be stable for the long term. “We let the bone rest and merge with the implant for the three-month period or so it takes for that implant to be firmly anchored,” Marcellin-Little said.


Promise for more normal human limbsThe result is a custom-designed prosthesis that behaves like a natural limb, a technique with significant promise for human prosthetics.


The Department of Veterans Affairs said that more than 1.3 million injured veterans need prosthetics every year and that the demand is rising as more service members come home from Iraq and Afghanistan missing limbs. With new prosthetic technologies a priority of VA research, “the implications for this procedure are huge,” Marcellin-Little said. “As we gain more experience with the surgical technique and the design of the limbs, we see the possible benefits for humans — implants that allow the prosthetic limbs to attach without chafing or irritation, and limbs with more natural ranges of motion,” he said. “We believe that this is the future of prosthetics.”


Harrysson said the hope was that it could be used on humans “on a regular basis. ... We see this process becoming even faster and more cost-effective in the future.” Eventually, he said, a person could “be able to receive a CT scan from a hospital and probably, within days, turn this around.”


Julie Henry is medical correspondent for NBC affiliate WNCN of Raleigh, N.C. Alex Johnson is a reporter for msnbc.com.
© 2008 MSNBC

Two Peas In A Pod

Here is a pic of Greta (left) and Dewey (right) doing what they do best...

Introducing Dewey The Tripod Dog!

On my very first day back at the shelter, a coworker stopped by my desk to ask if I had seen the "little dachshund that looks just like Greta" who was in the holding kennel. I hadn't, but I cautiously began making inquires. When I asked another colleague about him, she said "Oh, you mean the guy with three legs?" Right then, I knew that I was in serious trouble! An old red smoothie dachshund with a missing leg? This dog was just the kind of fellow I knew I'd fall in love with!

Sure enough, when I went to see him, Dewey instantly captured my heart. He was sitting on his bed looking miserable, but he perked up right away when I leaned down to introduce myself. Dewey had been transferred in a stray from Eastern Washington and looked worse for wear. His toenails were painfully overgrown (except for the ones that had clearly broken off), he had fleas, a missing right rear leg, a scar above one eye, and a mouth full of rotten teeth. I offered him a handful of treats through the chain-link fence, which he gladly gobbled up. Then, when I opened the door to his kennel, he literally jumped into my arms!

After getting the go-ahead from Michael, Dewey came home with us later that week. He has felt like a member of our family from day one. We are still getting to know all of his quirks and working on a few issues (such as stealing food off of the coffee table!), but there is no doubt about it: Dewey is here to stay!!!

Deciding On A Second Dog

When Greta joined the family back in 2005, we were committed to letting her be the "top dog" - or, in other words, an only child. Of course, this didn't stop us from looking at available dogs online on a regular basis. "Jawless Johnny" - a little Dachshund without a lower jawbone who had been abandoned in a public bathroom - was one who especially pulled at our heartstrings. We even went so far as to submit an application to Buffalo Pug & Small Breed Rescue to start the adoption process, but luckily for Johnny, he had already found a home!

When I began working at an animal shelter earlier this year, we were once again presented with the opportunity to add a second dog to our little clan. I started fostering dogs on a semi-regular basis, and although they were all great in different ways (Peanut was a cuddler, Freddy loved to play endless rounds of fetch, Dominic was feisty and amusing, Bianca adored being brushed), none of them seemed like just the right dog for our family.

Over the summer, a wonderful blind black lab named Otis showed up at the shelter. With his super sweet disposition, everyone promptly fell in love with him, including me. I have always been more of a small dog person, but 80 pound Otis promptly won me over! He had the endearing habit of "shaking" your hand with his paw and gently nuzzling to get belly scratches.

I went online to learn more about blind dogs and found some great information at sites like http://www.blinddogs.com/ and http://www.blinddogs.net/. The more I read, the more I was certain that a blind dog like Otis could do just fine with us. Convincing my husband, however, was another matter! With Otis in the back of my mind, we packed up and jetted off to California and Nevada (with Greta in tow) for a long-awaited family vacation.

During our trip, I had plenty of time to reflect. Although I felt a special connection with Otis, I could appreciate Michael's concerns about introducing a big lab into our relatively small apartment. As it turned out, Otis found a home while we were out of town and I was very happy for him. I accepted his good fortune as fate and returned home resolved to focus on Greta and stop thinking about a second dog...

Just For Fun...

My friend / coworker shared this photo with me and it's just too silly to keep to myself...

Why We Heart Senior Dogs

Although puppies are indisputably adorable, I have a very special place in my heart for senior dogs. When it came time to adopt Greta, we were certain we wanted an older doxie for a number of reasons. Here is a great list from the Senior Dogs Project that perfectly summarizes our reasoning:

Top 10 Reasons to Adopt a Senior Dog

1. Older dogs are housetrained.

2. Older dogs are not teething puppies, and won't chew your shoes and furniture while growing up.

3. Older dogs can focus well because they've mellowed. Therefore, they learn quickly.

4. Older dogs have learned what "no" means. If they hadn't learned it, they wouldn't have gotten to be older dogs!

5. Older dogs settle in easily, because they've learned what it takes to get along with others and become part of a pack.

6. Older dogs are good at giving love, once they get into their new, loving home. They are grateful for the second chance they've been given.

7. What you see is what you get: Unlike puppies, older dogs have grown into their shape and personality. Puppies can grow up to be quite different from what they seemed at first.

8. Older dogs are instant companions - ready for hiking, car trips, and other things you like to do.

9. Older dogs leave you time for yourself, because they don't make the kinds of demands on your time and attention that puppies and young dogs do.

10. Older dogs let you get a good night's sleep because they're accustomed to human schedules and don't need nighttime feedings, comforting, or bathroom breaks

-From The Senior Dogs Project: www.srdogs.com

A Few Photos From Our First Months With Greta

And Then There Were Three

Our first dog, Greta, joined the family nearly three years ago in the fall of 2005. For years I had my heart set on a Dachshund, but I knew there had to be a better alternative to purchasing one from a breeder. After a bit of googling, I was delighted to discover a variety of Dachshund rescue groups online. While browsing the adoptable doxies on Coast To Coast Dachshund Rescue, we found our girl.

Greta was estimated to be 12-years old and had been pulled out of a high kill pound in Ohio. Otherwise, her history was entirely unknown. Greta's wonderful foster family were glad to fill us in with as much info as they could offer: her love of snuggling, her preference for green beans, and her timid demeanor around strangers. After several email exchanges and phone calls, we were certain that this was the right dog for us.

Greta's foster parents generously drove her to us in Western New York on a beautiful October afternoon. I can still remember the exact moment when I first saw our petite new family member in person as I looked out the window and watched her trot up to the front door. It really was love at first sight!