Greetings from Wally World

Having a special needs dog is a life changing experience, requiring lots of commitment.

It all started last summer when one night, Walter woke us up panting and in pain. We thought it must be another case of Lyme disease, but that didn’t check out. Two days later, he went from limping to dragging his butt. From there, things happened quickly.

A MRI revealed he had two ruptured discs at T11-T12, and while still under anesthesia, immediately went in for emergency spine surgery. The neurosurgeon told us that our dog would have a 75% shot at regaining all function of his back legs. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened. Yet.

Walter has been in rehab all summer, fall and winter. Working hard to strengthen and build back those back legs. In October, he got a bad UTI which set him back in a big way. In addition to his back legs being paralyzed, Wally is incontinent. This means that someone has to “squeeze” his belly to express urine from his bladder every few hours. He is susceptible to UTIs (urinary tract infections).

At the end of 2020, I realized, I needed more help. I started to fundraise because our vet bills were seriously depleting our savings. We are fully committed to our four legged family member. Our friends and family really stepped up and supported Walter through his Go Fund Me account. And I discovered a wonderful non-profit called WildHearts that helps support families with dogs with mobility challenges.

Walter is getting stronger by the day, thanks to relentless daily rehab at home and at the vet. He’s also seeing a skilled nutritionist who uses applied kinesiology and has him on Standard Process supplements . You can follow his adventures on Instagram where he is known as @WallyRu22