Saving Sadie by Joal Derse Dauer

Author:Joal Derse Dauer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Mothership Connection

The autumn and winter of 2012 was a busy time for Sadie and me, full of several significant milestones. She continued to make progress in her rehab, slowly but steadily. Her legs had strengthened and improved so much that she was now placing the bottoms of her paws on the ground to walk, maybe not every time, but most of the time. This meant that the chronic abrasion she’d had on her back left leg from dragging it had healed so much that I no longer needed to cover it with a vet wrap.

We were still working on her stair exercises, and her “al dente” back legs were more stable now and had started reaching for the next step, which was a huge improvement. By the second of November, she was able to do one full step on her own, without my help. I truly felt that we were on the verge of a major breakthrough and that Sadie would be walking again very, very soon. I was confident that all the toil, sweat, and tears of the past six months were about to blossom into something wonderful.

The most extraordinary thing that happened during this time was that Sadie got out of diapers at last! The vets (other than Dr. Jodie) who’d first seen Sadie projected that, because of her spinal injuries, she’d be urinary and fecally incontinent for the rest of her life. But Sadie proved them wrong, wrong, wrong! She had been gradually gaining better control over her bodily functions, and so I had been able to keep her out of diapers for longer and longer periods of time during the day. It was mostly at night when she’d have problems, or first thing in the morning, when her bladder was too full for her to go on her own and I had to help her empty it.

Dr. Laurie from TOPS had recommended a homeopathic remedy for dogs with urinary incontinence called Leaks No More, and that had helped greatly. Now Sadie was staying dry all night and then rushing down the stairs by herself in the morning when she needed to go. I would let her outside and she would urinate without any help! She had been detoxing on her own almost since the beginning, so now she had achieved true independence in the “bathroom department.”

I think my constantly reinforcing the command of “go potty, go potty” had helped Sadie make the connection, along with watching Sparky “go potty,” too. I was so proud of what Sadie had accomplished! Not to mention how much easier it made my life, no longer having to diaper a nearly fifty-pound dog several times a day.

Meanwhile, in addition to all our at-home efforts, Sadie was now back to swimming several times a week at Think Pawsitive while also still getting intensive treatment at Dr. Jodie’s and at TOPS. Originally we had thought Sadie would only need to go to TOPS until the end of October, but she was

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.