Miss Peaches- Down, but not out.

We've had dogs always, since 1980, and dachshunds since 1997. So far we had been really lucky. Unfortunately that changed on Monday. I'm not sure when the actual moment it happened, we knew her back was bothering her. We had taken her to the vet and were helping her up and down and hoping we could avoid a bigger problem. Monday, I was going to take them for a short walk, Peach was excited as usual. We got out the door and as far as next door when she put on the brakes. We went back home, she walked back, but it was terribly apparent something was horribly wrong. She was in major distress and dragging her back feet. I called my husband, we rushed her to the vet. They referred us to an awesome veterinary facility in Yonkers. If we to save her we would have to act quickly, we left directly. They gave us the low down, an MRI and spine surgery. My husband made the call, we would go ahead with it.

The MRI showed 95% compression of the disc, she couldn't rehab back from this. The surgery went well, after removing the damaged disc the spinal cord looked good. I drove the hour to see her on the two days she had to stay in the hospital. I was happy she chowed down some food while I was there on the first day as they said she hadn't eaten. I thought I wouldn't visit as I thought she might be upset to have me leave her again, but my daughter said her dog really got better sooner when she visited him. So I decided I would. I know I felt much better seeing her and I think she really felt better seeing me. Besides Peachy visited me once in the hospital (my daughter snuck her in her bag), so I owed her.

My sweet Peachy is home now and we are helping her with her physical therapy. The first night was tough, she cried a lot. mostly because she had to stay in the crate instead of next to me. It will be one day at a time now for awhile. I know what it's like to be paralyzed and have to learn to walk again and get your strength back, so I am going give her all the help she needs. She's got a lot of spirit and drive so we actually need to keep her from doing too much. On the way home she wanted to put her head out the window, but I just held her so she could smell the breeze. As we pulled into our road she picked her head up and was obviously very happy because there's no place like home.