What I really wanted was a family pet and a running companion. Don't get me wrong, I never intended for Buddy to do 20 milers and run daily with me. What I wanted was for Buddy to be able to do runs of five or six miles twice a week.
Our days of running began just after Buddy celebrated his first birthday. We started slow, running at his pace, and accomplished a mile or so on our first run together. From there we worked our way up to our last run of five miles on December 23rd. This will probably be our last run together and in all honesty, it couldn't have been better.
After going to work in the morning, Buddy and headed out to the Nickelplate Trail in Louisville. It was one of those cool, crisp, December afternoons. Snow fell lightly on a snowcovered trail. The trail itself is 2.5 miles on an abandoned railroad that has been resurfaced as an all-purpose trail. The suface is good and the trail quiet, so it was a perfect spot for our afternoon run.
I'll never forget the sheer joy I watched in Buddy as we made the turn at the halfway point. Anyone that has ever run with a dog knows what I'm talking about. Ears swinging up and down,tongue hanging out to the side, he cut quite a silhouette with his shiny black coat against a backdrop of snow. It's a pleasant memory I'll have of Buddy for the rest of my life.
The problems all started after that run. Whether he hurt himself on the run, or when he slipped getting back into the car I'll never know, either way I noticed when we got home that he was limping. I assumed that maybe he has simply pulled something until I felt his hip. Buddy's left hip was swollen and stuck out noticeably more than his right. Like any pet owner we hoped that he had only pulled a muscle and that the hip was the consequence of swelling. By Monday the 27th, it was obvious that problem wouldn't simply go away.
On Tuesday the 28th, I set up a vet appointment and expected the worse. I was pretty sure that, at the very least, Buddy has partially seperated his hip. I knew my fears weren't unfounded when the vet felt his hip, remarked "Wow" and immediately took him back for an X-ray. When he returned about five minutes later, the news was even worse than I'd feared. He told me that Buddy was suffering from severe hip dysplasia, even more shocking was when he told me, "I would attempt to pop his hip back into the socket, but there really isn't a socket for me to put it back into."
Burdened with this diagnosis and emotionally struggling to keep things together, Buddy and I accepted a disk of his X-ray and the name of a surgeon as we headed to the front desk to pay the $100 for his visit and the grim news. I'd like to claim that I'm a big tough guy and that Buddy is only a "dog", but I can't lie. I lost it when we got to the car. In one short year this crazy canine that destroyed my house, knocked down the kids, and ruined at least three of my shirts. He had also truly touched my heart. Dogs do a funny thing to you. They slowly work their way into your heart, not by trying too, but by simply being themselves. Their love is so genuine and without boundries or conditions. They follow you, make you smile and are always happy and eager to greet you when you return home. For all of these things they work their way into our busy lives and become an crucial part of our families. Now I worried that I would lose all of this.
On New Years Eve my wife, Kelly, and I took Buddy to a specialist. We hoped for the best and feared the worst. The surgeon and head of the Viking Animal Hospital is a vet by the name of Terry Owens who has long practised medicine and is very well regarded as a surgeon. After only a quick look at Buddy's X-rays he quickly concurred with Dr. Evanovich in Louisville. He had severe Hip Dysplasia, but Doctor Owens thought that something could be done.
Dr. Owens offered us two solutions The first was an incredibly expensive procedure that involved a full hip replacement using artifical hip joints. The procedure involved an extensive recovery, prostetic joints, a life of anti-rejection medicine, and about $3000 per leg of cost. On the upside, Buddy would eventually be almost as good as new. He would be able to run again and would experience no pain once the joints had healed.
Our second option was a salvage operation called Femoral Head Excision. In this surgery, the femoral head is removed and the resulting scar tissue forms an artificial joint allowing the dog a painfree normal life but limits the function of the joint so that the dog's gait may be effected and they may "bunny hop" when they run. Unlike the full hip replacement, Femoral Head Excision carries a much smaller pricetag. The cost to do both hips is approximately $1800.
In all honesty, I don't think that full hip repalcement was ever really an option for Buddy. He's not a show dog, he's not even a purebred. What he is, is a family pet. If we can give him the chance at a painfree, fullfilling life, that's what we will do. We made the decision to go ahead with the Femoral Head Excision.
On January the 18th, Buddy will have both of his hips operated on. He will be completely unable to walk for a week, and will struggle for about six weeks to reach some shade of normal. The vet expects a full recovery, or at least the best results to be apparent within twelve weeks.
In the coming weeks I will continue to update this blog about Buddy's surgery and the process of recovery. If you are a friend and reading this, I thank you for taking the time and for your concern for our family and our dog. If you've stumbled upon this article because of the tags I've attached to it, I hope this is helpful.
Showing posts with label Hip Dysplasia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hip Dysplasia. Show all posts
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Thursday, December 30, 2010
A Crippling Revelation: Dealing with Hip Dysplasia in our Dog
Buddy has been living with us for just over a year now and has carved out a place in all of our hearts. He is a 17month old Labrador Retriever mix with great temperment and a constanly wagging tail. We knew we had a winner with him the first time my five year-old sat on his back and pulled a rawhide chew out of his mouth. Buddy didn't bite, growl, bark, or even react. He just sat there like nothing had happened. A minute later Ben gave the chew back and Buddy resumed his former position.
Buddy's life began like thousands of other dogs who find themselves on the street from birth. In August of 2009, he was born in a ditch along the side of the road. His mother was a stray who was grossly underweight. Depsite being a Chocolate Lab mix, she weighed only 38 pounds after giving birth to her puppies. Also tragic was her advanced age. They estimated her age at eight years when she had this litter of puppies.
Buddy's first bit of luck in life happened when the woman who owned the aforementioned ditch took pity on the old Lab and her tiny puppies. She took the litter in, raising them for a week, then making the phone call that would change all the puppies lives for the good.
At a very young age, Buddy and his litter mates were taken in by a wonderful woman named Denise who operates the Save a Mom Pregnant Dog Rescue. Save a Mom Rescue is a gem of an operation located in East Sparta, Ohio, just south of Canton. She takes in pregant dogs and dogs that have recently had puppies, with the sole goal of adopting out both the moms and the babies. In many cases, the dogs that Denise saves would be euthanized at another facility.
Buddy spent his first few months at Save a Mom before being adopted for the first time. His first family had come with the intention of adopting one of his siblings, but ended up going home with both of the remaining puppies instead of just one. I know very little about the six weeks that Buddy spent at that other home, although under their care he wasn't Buddy at all, but instead went by the name Milo. In the end though, Milo wasn't a good fit for their family. After six weeks time, Buddy's first owner called, in tears, and said she needed to return one of the puppies. She said simply that two lab pups was one too many. So Milo, or Buddy, ended up right where he started.
Our relationship with Buddy began on a rainy Saturday a week and a half before Christmas 2009. For a little over a year before that I had been working on my wife about getting a puppy. I used all the typical arguements about kids and puppies, security, etc... and finally she caved and agreed to go look with us. A week earlier I had begun asking around, which meant telling my Mother I was thinking about getting a dog, and had been referred to Denise and Save a Mom from the Tuscarawas County Humane officer, Karen Slough. So by that Saturday, everything was in place and we went off to meet Buddy/Milo, a energetic, loving four and half month old lab mix.
The rest of Buddy's story for his first year with us is pretty typical, every year thousands of families adopt puppies and deal with the trials and tribulations involved in a dog's first year. To summarize, he had accidents in the house, destroyed and tried to eat the kid's toys, succeeded in eating the drywall in the upstairs hallway of our home, and managed to turn our daily routine upside down. During all of this he managed to melt our hearts and become a cherished member of our family.
In the end, I guess that's why dealing with this is so painful. Dogs are like family members, or in their lingo, members of the pack. When the vet told us his diagnosis, it was like hearing dire news about one of my children.
Our next visit is scheduled for Friday morning. During this consultation we will find out what options we have to move forward. After that I'll try to update this blog with a summary of our intitial vet visit and our meeting with the specialist. Whether it ever gets there or not, it's my hope that someone else dealing with this issue will run across this and better know what to expect with their own dog.
Until Friday.....
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