Our little dachshund somehow hurt herself. We have a theory she may have fallen off the back of the couch one day while holding grim vigil regarding the Black & White.
The B&W is a neighborhood cat that sashays up and down Jojo's street, often having the gall to saunter sassily through her front yard. This outrageous effrontery highly offends Jojo, who takes these feline trespasses with much pique and barking. We think that in one of these displays of doxie moxie she may have tumbled off the couch in her agitated displeasure and injured her back.
We first observed her beginning to drag a foot while running. Having already lost a dachshund to back problems, before this modern age of neurosurgery, we knew well what we were seeing, and it was devastating to us. The foot-dragging became more pronounced, and we were getting more worried.
My wife, Jan and I had her examined and the prognosis wasn't good. She began to drag both her hind legs and full rear quarter paralysis was rapidly closing in. Our vet recommended we to take her northward to an animal hospital in Dania (Broward County), FL, specializing in canine neurosurgery. There we met Dr. Cook, a fine and gentle man, and a surgeon who specializes in spinal operations for primarily dachshunds and basset hounds.
Only ten to fifteen years ago, neurosurgery of this sort was very expensive and uncertain. There were no guarantees and successes were spotty in correcting spinal injuries to miniature dachshunds. In recent years, that uncertainty has been reduced dramatically. Only the expense remains, and even that has lessened considerably with the gained efficiency and advances in canine neurosurgery.
There was never a question as to whether we were going ahead with this operation. We regarded the cost, which rose above $2,000.00 as a necessity. We were of course thankful for the ability to afford the expense. If there can be a six-million dollar man, there could be a two-grand dog, and that's what she became. Dr. Cook, furthermore, said that he would "absolutely" heal this dog with the surgery, and reckoned her chances of complete recovery at 99%. As wiener-pup owners know well, any dachshund is worth that amount and much more. We gave our sausage dog to the good doctor with great expectations.
When Dr. Cook took our dachshund, she had almost complete paralysis in the hind quarters. We returned the 50 miles to South Miami to wait. Three days later, we came to pick her up. The door to the inner area opened to the waiting room, and this shaved, denuded thing with a grotesquely arched back skittered through. She danced around on all four feet, as happy as any dog could possibly hope to be, which, considering what she looked like, was remarkable. I was shocked at the disfigured and misshapen look of her, but resisted the urge to shout, "What have you done, you fiends!" This was the ugliest, most beautiful dog I'd ever seen.
Our dachshund is extra long, by the way. She more resembles an exaggerated caricature of a dachshund from the comics and cartoons. There is at least an extra three inches in her midsection, that if it were not there, no one would miss it, and she would still be a classic little wiener schnitzel.
We've had two dachshunds before this one, both beautiful, but regular-sized minis, and both weighing exactly ten pounds, as does Jojo. But she is much longer than our previous two dogs, so when I tell you her back was hideously arched in a high elbow of a turn, and that she looked like the Hunchdog of Notre Dame, you must believe me. She had the length of back to make this distortion very pronounced.
The arched back was only part of the total shocking visual effect. She also was shaved of all fur along most of her body. I had forgotten that one must lose hair in areas of surgery, and that goes for dogs too. Then, along seven and a half inches of her backbone, a jagged row of large stainless steel staples shined along the curve of that arched back. It resembled the track of a miniature roller coaster.
This was one odd looking dashhound. As lengthy as she was, and now as furless, with those staples defining the astonishing arched back, she looked like a zippered purse made out of a skinned weasel. She was a sight, wiggling in on all four feet, managing to travel basically in a forward direction, while her back seemed to point more northwest. Somehow she coordinated front and back feet, with this curved, stapled snake of a body writhing in between, and accomplished a locomotion that amazingly resulted in forward progress.
I was in admiration of this dachshund even before the surgery, that she managed to communicate down the absurd length of her, from front legs to distant back. I imagined a hook and ladder fire truck that needed a driver on the rear wheels to accomplish turns. Jojo made turns quite well with no visible rear driver, as do all dachshunds to the astonishment of their owners. Now, however, that front to rear leg communication seemed even more miraculous, given not only the distance, but the circuitous route. Yet, rear legs were receiving workable messages all along the stapled arch of her, and she now walked on all fours, something she could not do before the surgery. Skinned weasel purse that she was, her back legs worked, and she not only walked, but ran to meet me, almost bumping my nose with the bend in her back.
Dr. Cook assured me that in perhaps a month, the arched back would begin to relax. In time, she would settle horizontally to her ultra-long self, a caricature even of a dachshund. She also would be well, he said, and completely restored to her full vitality. That has in fact happened.
For weeks, this bent dachshund roamed around the yard, furless, stapled-up, and completely undoglike in appearance. Slowly the back began to relax, as she put distance between the trauma of the surgery and her new leash on life. A month later we took her back to the doctor for staple removal. She no longer looked like a zippered purse, but with the scar and disfigured body, she was Frankenweenie.
Dr. Cook had not only fixed the offending herniated disc, removing the protruding material from between the vertebrae, but he had also "cleaned up" the discs fore and aft, for a length of almost eight inches of the spine. In so doing, he actually made her better off than had nature, reducing the chances of future problems along the spinal column. Barring any further accident, Jojo would be as good or better than she was prior to her injury.
It has been three years, and she is still going strong, back legs still taking improbable orders from a brain pan that is an impressive distance removed. Adjusted to relative size, a human would have to be fifteen feet tall to equal this brain-to-legs communication.
The two thousand bucks hurt a little at first, but has long since been forgotten, as we still have our beloved longdog. She is seven now, and if she needed another zipper installed to save her life again, there would be no hesitation. This sentiment will be regarded as self evident by miniature dachshund owners. We sometimes wonder, however, what other people, either undogged folk or those with dogs not prone to the back syndrome, think about such an expense to save the life of a ten-pound thing that looks like a ballpark frank, has no discernable practical use, and can only hunt miniature badgers, and even then, only in ancestral dreams. Ours still keeps vigil for the dreaded B&W, the closest thing to a badger she will ever get to bark up.
We think we notice a more cautious stance on the back of the couch. For several months, she would not ascend there unless we held her securely. This was what led us to the theory that she had fallen from this favorite perch. Now she does go up there, but with a surer foot, we think. It is difficult for us to rob her of the pleasure of watching over her sacred front yard. The B&W must be challenged appropriately when it deigns to intrude upon the hallowed ground of a poised and vigilant wiener-dog. We understand, and hope that in her considerable dog brain, there is a new prudence borne of remembrances of being skinned alive, arched like a ferret in full tilt, and stapled up like a busted sausage casing.
We write this to all dachshund owners everywhere, especially those who are now going through some back problems with their doxie, or those who already have. A new day has dawned in the life of a long-spined dog. Injuries to the back can be corrected with great success. If you see evidences of the back syndrome threatening your sausage dog, you may now with confidence consider the option of corrective neurosurgery. The beloved dashhound can dash once more. Good luck and Providence to us all, parent and pup alike.
