Mr. Buddy Rose - American Staffordshire Terrier Part XX

(Parts I-XIX of Buddy's story are posted below. If you would like to read them in chronological order, please scroll down. You may need to click "Older Posts" at the bottom of this page. Thanks for reading the story of the remarkable Mr. Buddy Rose.)

Thursday, October 21, 2010
Mr. Buddy Rose is healthy, happy and remains up and walking on all four paws. He is better than he was 26 days ago. He is still not quite as healthy as he has been at his best. After a little more than three weeks back on the steroid Prednisone, we are slowly weaning him back off it. He will have a low dosage of Prednisone every other day for the next 30 days and then we will re-evaluate with his vet. Our hope is that he will be able to live without it. The reality of his situation may be that he has to remain on some small dosage for the remainder of his life.

Before this recent set-back, Buddy had been off Prednisone for more than 60 days. After all of the original tests and vet consultations, we believe Buddy has a back injury. A couple of the vets and specialists have suggested he may have two back injuries, one in his neck and the other in his lower back. A week after we removed him from that filthy yard, when he could only crawl around, we were told someone "may" have hit him with a tire iron. In the deepest, darkest recesses of my brain, I cannot imagine someone hitting any dog with a tire iron, much less, using terms such as "may," "might," "could" or "maybe" when stating the possibilities of what this beautiful dog went through at the hands of an abuser. If I saw anyone hit a dog with anything, there would be no "may," "might," "could" or "maybe" to it. I regress, back to Buddy and his walking issues.

Four weeks ago this past Tuesday, we took Mr. Rose for his first "doggie play day" at one of the local kennels. He plays with little dogs all the time, we really wanted to give him the opportunity to play and run with big dogs. Placing no blame, something happened to him that day. Whether he jumped, was jumped on, rolled around or wrestled around. We're pretty sure something happened to him which caused re-injury to his already fragile spine. In hind-sight, we did not realize how fragile his spine really was. The day after he attended his doggie play day, his walking was slow. We attributed this to his being tired from the day before. By the next day, he was much slower and his legs were trembling when he stood for any length of time. The third day we were at the vet and Buddy was back on Prednisone.

We wonder if he will ever be able to run and play with big dogs or if he will continue to re-injure himself and be resigned to always being the "Bullie" in a world full of small dogs. Yesterday, the Colonel tossed Buddy's "ball on a rope" into his little kiddie pool. He gave a big chase and a huge jump, only to splay himself out in the middle of the pool with a massive splash. It was funny to see, but it's incredibly hard to worry about him with every jump, fall or tumble. So, today, like every day after something big, we are once again watching him for any sign of weakness in his legs. He seems fine and fit, but the worrying about him seems to never end.

What if Mr. Rose is a "special needs" dog? I have thought about this a lot. The reality is, like all dogs, he is a "special needs" dog. He has the "special need" to be loved and cared for, the same love and care all of our dogs need and deserve. After all, it's a small price to pay for our special need of getting their unconditional love and loyalty.