Something Sad

I had a melancholy day today so to match that I'll share our melancholy news from this summer. Our dog is a Lhasa Apso, a dwarf breed with a long back and short, stocky legs.

As such, Benji belongs to a group of dog breeds that are susceptible to something called Intervertebral Disc Disease, a disorder where the discs around the spine swell and put pressure on the spine, which causes pain and, if left untreated, paralysis. 

I had heard of this in daschunds and corgis, dogs notoriously long-backed, but I had never thought of it for Benji. Turns out Lhasas are prone to it as well. 

When it first presents itself, IDD can look like abdominal pain. When Benji couldn't jump on the couch and yipped when we tried to pick him up, we thought he had colic or something like it. When it got bad enough that he couldn't walk on his back legs, we knew that even if it was colic it was bad enough that he needed to see a vet. Of course it was a Sunday, and our normal vet was not open. So we had to drive all the way to, and pay for, an emergency vet. 

Benji got bad enough that he lost all feeling to his back half. Outside of neural surgery, he didn't and still doesn't have very good odds that he'll ever get complete control back. Now, though, he has control over his tail, some muscle control over his legs but not enough to stand, and some control over his bladder to the point where he won't have an accident but we do have to help him go to the bathroom. #2 he doesn't seem to be able to hold, so we have to get him out on a schedule, but he does seem to know if he's going to do #2, so we've been able to make it outside just in time a couple times. 

So far we feel we've been able to still provide him with a pretty good quality of life despite his troubles.  If we ever get to the point where we feel we can't take care of him well enough or keep his quality of life high we have researched a couple rescue hospitals we can go to. 

Just now he's getting off of bed rest so he's starting to drag his buns around. He's getting pretty quick considering he has to waddle (we say he looks like a penguin with a big rear end). We're also planning to build him a wheelchair so he can get around the yard and go on walks. 

So that was the bad thing that happened this summer. Mostly the summer was good but this was definitely a bummer.