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...