ROCKINGHAM, NC........SCOOTER is an 11 month old LAB that was picked up as a stray. It appears he was run over after being hit by a car based on his injuries. He was then taken to the shelter in the area and then taken to a vet. The rescue and the vet that had this sweet dog did not have the resources or the skills necessary to save him which is why we were contacted. Scooters injuries are old. The best our surgeons can come up with is that the injury happened about 5 weeks ago based on what we are seeing. When we received Scooter it became clear we had a dog that was broken in a million different places. Our immediate concern was that the x-rays, lab results and his rectum indicated to us, he was bleeding internally. Things were not looking good for this sweet dog and we had only had him for an hour. One of the x-rays indicated to us this sweet dog had a twisted scrotum. He would die if that was not taken care of immediately. Scooter had his first of many surgeries to save his life and to eventually get this sweet boy walking again. He had not been able to walk since we received him. Once the surgeons went in, we discovered the scrotum had been twisted for so long that it had begun to die from loss of blood circulation. That was also the cause of a lot of the bleeding. This first initial surgery is what saved his life and we were then able to get him stable before we proceeded. Scooter has been with us for over a week recovering from his first surgery. His pelvis is broken in 4 places and his one rear leg is broken. We did surgery to repair his leg and also did a FHO (Femoral Head Ostectomy) at the same time. Scooters breaks are quite drastic and his pelvis has shifted 1-3 inches in some places. The pelvis is a box shape in humans and animals. When one part gets out of shape, it changes the shape of the entire box. Since it was so long before we got Scooter, scar tissue had started to form quite extensively around some of the breaks. His pelvis was now becoming a shape that he could not function with or ever be able to walk with again. We did a third surgery the other day that required three surgeons and almost 4 hours of surgery to do whatever was possible to get Scooter in position to some day walk again. We were able to plate one of the areas but the other we could not plate because the scar tissue had taken over his sciatic nerve. His pelvis was aggressively shifted back into proper form by clearing away as much scar tissue as was possible without damaging anything else. We are now going to have to wait and see how well the plate and the ligaments that we moved are going to hold. We know we are going to have to do more surgery but we need for his body to adapt to what has been done before we do any more procedures. This was a major undertaking and is extremely expensive. Scooter will also need extensive rehab all during this process to MAKE his body walk again. When animals are this broken up, they just want to lay there and not even try. That is not an option for this one. He is not going to like us for a while but will in the long run. During all this, Scooter has been nothing but the sweetest little Angel. He gives us kisses a thousand times a day. We had to do our best to save him or we had to put him down. He showed us he was willing to fight to be here and we showed him we would do whatever we had to save his life and get him walking again. He walked for the first time with assistance this morning. He still has a long way to go but this is a miracle all by itself.
SCOOTER UPDATE........After several operations, he is finally able to get up and walk. His rear right leg still wants to roll under occasionally but he does have the ability to correct it. He has to have a lot of rehab to make sure he uses all of his leg muscles from lack of use. The problem is that animals stop using an injured leg that hurts and start to favor the good leg. Water rehab forces them to use all of the legs correctly. As soon as Scooter is allowed to get in water that will be the next step for this beautiful little boy. He is an adorably sweet dog that wants nothing more than to shower you with kisses. We are feeling good about his prognosis of being able to walk again. Right now, we do not feel he will lose the rear leg but it will take a lot of rehab to get it built back up to function as normal as possible. It is just a matter of time and rehab to see how much progress we can make with all of the surgery he has had.
Scooter is still struggling to walk normally after all of his surgeries. He has improved a lot but still has a long way to go. We have been doing lots of rehab on him and that has improved his ability to lower his back leg to the ground. He is still knuckling under his foot on his rear leg but has has also improved. We are doing everything possible for him to keep from amputating his rear leg. I think we are making enough progress to get the outcome we want it is just going to be a long process. We still need funds for all of his care to continue with his rehab. Please, think about donating for this wonderful boy.
Our dear sweet boy has been adopted and is doing great. He is running around like a regular lab now that he has healed. Here he is with his new Family.
