SOAP BOX

This section, entitled SoapBox, is a place where our volunteers and adopters can offer their opinions on issues that trouble them, or otherwise educate the public concerning dog ownership.  This column is about the joy and challenges of adopting a special needs pet, and is written by Gail Dorsey, one of our adopters.  We are grateful to Gail for sharing her experience, and for providing a wonderful dog with a loving home.

Adopting a Special Needs Dog

By Gail Dorsey

Luke Then

I fell in love with a little guy on the Hedgesville Hounds web site. He looked straight through the camera right at me and a day and a half later, we were on our way to West Virginia. The picture didn’t do him justice and his gutsy little attitude got us right away. Even in my puppy-induced euphoria, however, I knew that there was something very wrong with his rear end (we had recently lost our 13 year old German Shepherd to Degenerative Myelopathy – I know bad hips when I see them). We stopped at the 24 hour animal hospital on our way home. They knew, too. They kept him for x-rays; I cried for an hour. When we went back to pick him up, he greeted us as if we had all been together for a lifetime and it was then that I knew for sure that we would be. We named him Luke – our friends call him Lucky Luke.

It was bad. He had most likely been hit by a car – his right rear leg was clean out of the socket; the bone was sheared off at the top; the leg was already more than an inch shorter than the other one. I started making calls the next day to every dog person I know looking for a surgeon. One name kept coming up and the recently-retired vet we had taken our dogs to for years sealed it when he gave us the same name. He said that the vet had been performing orthopedic surgery for 28 years and there is nothing he hasn’t seen and nothing he can’t fix.

The vet assured us that he could fix Luke with a total hip replacement but that he couldn’t do the surgery until he was well past what we would guess to be his first birthday. A difficult 10 months – Luke was in pain and med after another; when he couldn’t tolerate any more, we’d just move on to the next. By now, his right leg was a full 2 inches shorter than the left but he remained very exuberant, trying to run and jump like other puppies. Luckily, he is inherently good-natured and never really challenged our attempts to rein him in.

Finally, last June, after a gazillion x-rays and bone scans and an assessment by a team of hip replacement specialists from around the country, he was ready. We took him in on a Friday morning; surgery was at 3:00 pm; we picked up our bionic dog at 8:00 am the next morning. He walked to the car – I couldn’t believe his resilience, his heart, his desire to go home.

We had a long, long summer of rehabilitation. We moved to a room on the first floor so he wouldn’t be tempted by the stairs and he and my now-retired spouse began venturing out on morning walks. Luke is perfect now – he runs and leaps in the air and would be a competition Frisbee dog or master sheep herder if life had turned out differently for him. I don’t know if all rescued dogs are this sweet or if his first months were so horrific that he will forever be grateful for a loving home. I do know that he faced his infirmity with grit; he takes a simple and genuine pleasure in life; and, I am profoundly affected and touched by him every day.

Was it easy? No, not for him or us. Expensive? You bet. When I told my orthopedist what Luke’s hip replacement cost, he said he only gets 1/3 of that. But when I watch him hop after a squirrel or barrel down the stairs or jump into my husband’s lap and see, every day, how truly carefree and joyful he has become, I am happy that we were able to make this happen for him. I don’t know if we’ll ever be in the circumstances again where we will have the time and resources it takes to put a special needs dog back together but every time I see one on the web sites, I hope and pray that there is someone out there who can make life right for that particular puppy. Believe me, it’s worth it.

Luke Now