Dog Spinal Surgery

kahlua

Couple of weeks ago my dog (6 year old westie) had a hunched back and seemed to be in some pain, we thought at the time that it was her stomach and she had a history of constipation, she can be pretty greedy

We brought her to the vets and they said it was her back, they kept her overnight and did some x-rays on her back to see if they could find a disc problem. They gave her an anti-inflammatory which really seemed to help, we were able to bring her home the next day and she seemed to be doing well back to her old self! When we had brought her to the vets she had slight bowing in her legs which we didn't realise and the vet showed us what to look out for and gave us a few days worth of tablets.

Over the weekend she had slight bowing in her legs again so we thought we'd make an appt with the vet on Monday and bring her in, Sunday though she was much worse and couldn't move her back legs. We got an emergency appt with the vet, they said we had two options she'd either need spinal surgery or we could keep going with a stronger dose of the tablets, but from what he was saying if she had any chance at all of recovering use of her legs she needed the surgery.

We brought her home that night, she had been given a stronger anti-inflammatory injection and a painkiller, the vet told us if there was no improvement Monday morning to ring and he'd arrange for her to get surgery. Apparently there are only a few vets in the country that will do this type of surgery and it was expensive . We are based in Galway and had to bring her to Dublin to get the surgery.

The vet there told us there could be two causes, a disc problem and if that was the case she'd have an 80% chance of recovery or a hemorrhage which only had a 50% chance of recovery. She had an MRI and discovered that she had a hemorrhage in her spine... poor babe. She had the surgery Tuesday morning and we were able to take her home on Sat.

Her post op care is pretty intense, she has to have assisted standing exercises every hour for 5mins 10 times a day. She's had her stitches taken out and we've started doing some hydrotherapy (some standing and paddling in the bath). No use of her legs at all yet she was able to wag her tail before the surgery but she can't now.

Its been 13days since her surgery, it's hard to judge if things are going well or not, are we expecting too much or too little? Vet says if she gets to 12 weeks with no improvement she'll need a k-9 kart. Would love to hear from anyone who has been through this and can advise on their experience....

ISDW

I'm really sorry to hear this, but I guess the vet you used was Billy McCartney? He really is the best in the country, so if anyone could help her, it would be him.

There is someone on another forum, petsireland, who has a K9 cart for her dog, I don't know what happened to the dog that she can't use her back legs now, but from the photos I've seen, she has a great quality of life.

One of my dogs had an accident last year, we don't know what happened to him, something in the middle of the night, he couldn't move his back legs for a few weeks, the vets didn't think that he would ever walk again. It did take a few weeks before he could move his legs and his tail, however, with time and gentle exercise, he is now able to walk - albeit with a sailors gait, but he loves going out for short, gentle walks. So be patient, and keep up the physio.

Best of luck and please keep us posted.

kahlua

Yes it was Billy! He was very sweet, rang one evening to ask if she preferred sausages or chicken after her surgery

We've started hydrotherapy in the last day or so, hopefully that and the combo standing exercises we'll see some sign of improvement over the next week or two...