Walter came out of isolation on wednesday. We have had him to several specialists about his leg and all determined that he shouldn't have surgery. The two bones pieces are spaced so far apart that there is no rubbing occuring and he has zero pain in his leg at all. If they were to try the surgery they would have to insert a plate and many screws. (since the bone is dead it will not just be able to be reset and regrow itself) We had a toy poodle from Katrina that had an old break so we did the surgery and twice the plate broke during recovery and had to be replaced. (the recovery period for each plate was over 6months) He was in a lot of pain and therefore was on pain prevention medication. He was finally adopted by a wonderful lady but he wasn't home a month when the plate broke again and they decided to amputate his leg. He is fine now and doing great as a tripod
. Because of this experience and all the stress it was on him we decided not to put Walter through this. Also, Walter is estimated to be around 10yrs old and the less times we can put him under anesthesia the better. When he was under for his neuter and his (much needed) dental he had a hard time of it. It took him much too long to recover from the anesthesia so we are very cautious to put him under again if it can be avoided. We also found that he has a heart condition which causes him to cough quite often. We had to pull a lot of his teeth during his dental because they were so bad.
Like I said, he came out of isolation on wednesday and spent the day w/ our on staff trainer, Karry, to be evaluated. He proved to be a spoiled grumpy old man! hehe (I already knew that!) He is quite sensitive to his tail being touched, he is a professional food stealer & begger, he runs VERY fast for a dog w/ a gimp leg, he loves his tummy rubbed, he's a
little food aggressive (definately fixable), he can jump baby gates (hehe I already knew that too since he jumped my backseat!), he hates to be left alone, he will talk to you if you ignore him or leave him alone, he loves his butt scratched, he adores other dogs, he balances on his broken leg so he can lift his good leg to mark the bushes outside
, he likes to scratch his back on desks & rolly chairs and he's an all around love bug.
Hopefully this week I will be able to bring him up to my office on a daily basis.
