Our dog's story

It had been many years since I had a dog as a regular part of my life, in fact it was probably at least 20 years. Then, one day about 7 years ago, I came home from work and was greeted by my wife, kids and a 12 week old Black and Tan Dachshund. We voted on a name and out of a couple that we agreed on we settled on Duncan. Duncan was supposed to be a miniature Dachshund, but due to a quirk, he's actually a "tweeny", somewhere between the full size and the mini's. Why Duncan, well we decided that if we got a dog, there could be only one.

He lived in the kitchen, for the most part, during the first few months and it wasn't long before I realized that we didn't want to carry him down the steps of our deck to the enclosed backyard. So one of my next tasks was to build a ramp from our deck to ground level so that he didn't have to navigate those steps.

Duncan has had quite a few adventures, he's caught and eaten his share of bunnies in our back yard. He's also taken the occasional tumble, his front legs were in a cast sometime during that first year or two. He also has a special backpack called a Dog Gone Device for taking bike rides with the family (otherwise those little legs just can't keep up). He's always traveled well, ever since that first day when he made his journey in our mini-van from his birthplace near Portage, WI to his new home in Waukesha, WI. He's made frequent trips to Illinois to visit his human families relatives.

But just recent prior to our vacation, Duncan was in pain, so we got him in to the vet right away and he apparently had suffered some type of trauma to his back. They gave him some morphine to take care of the pain and said that he was ok to travel, (we were leaving that day for one of those trips to Illinois). The next day he was walking with a strange gate, as if his back legs weren't working quite right and then the next day he could use them at all. After a visit to a local vet, the diagnosis was that Duncan probably had a slipped or ruptured disk in his lower spine and that if he didn't improve within a week or so, that he would need surgery.

So Duncan now has until Thursday of this week, to see if he recovers his reflexes in his rear legs, otherwise we'll need to make arrangements for him to have back surgery to relieve the pressure on his spine.

More to follow on Duncan's progress...