Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Today I took our three-legged boy, Cody, back to Dr. Bostwick in Missoula for his fifth round of chemo.  I also took Buzz and Birdie, our recent "I-can’t-believe-I-ate-that!" cases, in to have the staples removed from their intestinal surgeries.  In addition, I brought along our deaf, old and mostly toothless miniature Dachshund, Oscar, so Dr. Dave could check him out.  About a week ago little Oscar began having some back problems, and we put him on prednisone after consulting with Dave.  That seemed to work, and he became mobile and active again.  He’s had these episodes in the past and gets over them pretty quickly.

But he keeps his tail down all the time now, which is unusual, and from time to time he starts trembling … not from fear or cold, but almost as if it’s involuntary nerve action.  There seem to be no real triggers for it.  So we wanted Dave to take a look at Oscar today to see if he could pinpoint anything.

As it turned out, Dave couldn’t find anything to explain it, and Oscar showed no neurological changes or any apparent problems with his spine.  In the photo Dave is pressing on Oscar’s spine at specific points, looking for signs of discomfort.  He checked out Oscar’s tail, lifting it up and moving it around, and again it didn’t seem to bother him.  Yet once down on the floor and walking around, Oscar kept his tail down.  Odd, huh?

For now we will begin tapering Oscar off his prednisone and then see what happens once he’s completely finished the course.

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I also picked up Spirit, the paralyzed Yorkie who arrived last Sunday, and brought her back home.  She seems to be doing fine.  Lori and Chad, who own Doggon’ Wheels, are coming out to the ranch next Tuesday to personally measure Spirit for a wheelchair, so pretty soon she’ll have a set of wheels!

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(Click on photo for larger image.)