Julie's PIckles 5/4/2017 surgery -Chi/Terrier Mix

My dog, Pickles, is a chuahuahua-terrior mix, age 4 1/2.  He has always been full of energy and would jump up and down on huge pieces of furniture effortlessly ever since he was a puppy. He loved jumping so much that I had no idea we were putting him in danger by not putting some rules down. I had never heard of IVDD dogs. This may have been happening for some time, but it wasn't until his back legs went out on him completely that we discovered he had not one, not two, but three blown disks. He got emergency surgery May 4th. He was hospitalized for a week. When we got him home, he was off his pain patch, but he did still need a round of prednisone.  We were fortunate that he could pee pee on his own when we took him outside with a strap under his backside, but the stools were a bigger problem...very loose and at first, leaking out almost like a liquid before we could get him outside ):. We were happy his tail was wagging when we picked him up. That still worked perfectly even if his back legs were initially useless...

Much has improved, especially his bowels and his left back leg (with the right one trailing behind, however, jutting out sideways).  He used to ring a bell to go poo, but now that he cannot do that, we try to time it right.  He seems to be able to hold his pee pee however until outside.  We are taking him to a doggy pt as long as we can afford to, plus doing the exercises with him at home (in no way are we as good as Miss Laura, his therapist!). They also have a treadmill there and eventually a pool, so I'd like to stick it out for as long as I can.

This is pretty exhausting. My dog is not as self-sufficient as he once was and we are trying to be so very careful. We cleared all the furniture out of a spare room for him, built a ramp, added some rugs and yoga mats, 2 pens and a babygate! It is tiring like when we brought my daughter home from the hospital 16 years ago. I am feeling new-born baby exhausted and the fact I have MS does not help. We have to retrain him from his life of jumping around - he will be a low-rider from now on, and we really need to be careful we don't step on him as he has always hung around on our big tall furniture.

Anyway, many are praying for our dog to fully walk again, and I think he will. We can do all we can do, but to what degree he will recover is really out of our hands. He has a good attitude, but hates the crate totally. He has more freedoms as the weeks pass and he has gotten much stronger, but I can see he is occasionally frustrated, depressed and bored. Who wouldn't be? No more walks, doggy day play or dog parks. Kind of a big change and we are all feeling it!  As I have MS, he was my motivation to take long walks together.  That is not going to happen as he is only supposed to be on grass anyway and there is not much of it around here.  Thanks for reading this.

P.s. He was a rescue and was "pediatric neutered" when we got him. There are some theories out there that this may cause bone development problems.