Well, technically it isn't my dog. It's my parents. He is a Brittany Spaniel named Kramer that is somewhere around 12 years old. He's a great dog. When he was young, he would get really excited when people came over and just run around the house like crazy. He still gets excited when people come over and will sometimes do that but usually he does what we've come to call "the happy feet dance." He even smiles, I swear to God.
Well at the beginning of the summer, right before I made a trip down to Mexico with Jennie, he got real sick. I felt helpless down in Mexico not knowing if he was alive or dead and was relieved when I finally found out that he made it out ok. I cried tears of relief when my dad told me.
Well, today I was messing around with him. I was kind of acting like an attacking animal, which is a game we have played together for years. He started running around and then suddenly I hear him yelping. I turn around and he is trying to stand up on his back legs, but can't. It's like one of them isn't working, and is kind of stuck out straight under him. I can't even explain how I felt at that moment. My mom screamed "His leg! He can't move it!" and then started crying. I picked him up and held him kind of like a baby (a fat fucking 35 lb baby). He wasn't crying anymore, but his leg was still sticking out and he was shaking really bad. I thought maybe he had a cramp or something and felt his muscles, but they weren't tight. I thought maybe it was a broken leg, so I tried to feel for a break and kind of put pressure on it in different places, but he never cried. I even moved it in and out and he didn't cry. I tried to put him down but he still couldn't stand up.
So my dad an I took him to the vet right then. Other than the fact that he's not really moving his legs, he seems like he's in good spirits: he's smelling things outside and licking my face. The whole way I'm thinking he has a broken hip bone or something and we're going to have to euthanize him and I keep telling myself that I'm not ready for him to go and I'm crying. At the vet, they took us to a room right away, but they didn't come to see him for about 20 min. after weighing him. He kept trying to get up but we basically just tried to calm him down and keep him laying down. He was shaking really bad again. Then once he seemed like he was going to try to get up and we decided to see what would happen. His leg wasn't all straight anymore, but he couldn't manage to stand up. It just wasn't happening for him, but he didn't seem like he was in pain.
At this point my dad is thinking stroke. I'm thinking maybe a fractured spinal cord, I didn't think he had a stroke because he seemed like himself. The nurse comes in and feels all the parts of his back legs and actuates them. She seems confident there is no break anywhere in his legs so she has him put all his weight on one, and then the other. Amazingly, he was able to stand up somewhat. Then she leaves and says she'll be back. At this point, he's on the ground so we let him go. And he tries to stand up again, and he makes it! It was shaky but he got up. Then he started walking around and smelling things and listening at the door. You could tell there was still something wrong though. His leg didn't seem to have much stability and he was kind of dragging it sometimes.
They come back and take him away to do an x-ray. After viewing the x-ray, it is determined that he has arthritis in his spine. His last three vertebrae are missing their disks, and bone has begun to grow and fuse them together. This is a good thing, according to the vet, because it helps prevent injury to his back. She thinks what happened is that he has had this arthritis problem for some time, and he either pinched a nerve or tweaked his spinal cord. She gave him a pain-killer in shot form and then gave him a muscle relaxer and a anti-infamant. She said that the spinal column is probably swollen at this point, creating pressure on the nerves and explaining why he doesn't have full leg function. She said that he needs to rest for two weeks and it should go away, but it might not in which case he can take medicine for the chronic problem.
At this point he's home, and walking around ok for the most part. But he can't go up or down stairs and can't jump up on anything. That doesn't mean he doesn't try. He tried to go downstairs before anyone could catch him, and it was scary. He didn't fall, but it just didn't look pretty. And he can't go up at all. He tries and makes it like one step and falls down. Everytime I see him do it, it brings tears to my eyes. I really love this dog, and I think I have to start preparing myself for the time that he won't be with us anymore. It's just been so easy to dismiss for so long because he was so young at heart still.
