Fawn!
Carla Rogers in Virginia came to us about Fawn, one of her Dobes. Some of you may know Carla for all the great Dobe rescue work she does with DAR&E (Doberman Assistance, Rescue and Education). She is also their Treasurer. Fawn is her family Dobe, and has been since May of 2001 when she was almost put down by her former owner. Fawn had integrated well with the other Rogers Dobes and all was well. Quite to their surprise, a fight ensued with one of their other females in June of 2003. Her immediate injuries healed, but it became apparent over time that something else was wrong. The nerve problems that the symptoms were pointing to were recently confirmed by an MRI. Surgery for a compressed disk has been scheduled, and SND is helping to help this wonderful girl.
Please read Fawn's entire story as told by her mom below! You can help Fawn with a tax deductible donation, which can be sent to us by mail or you can use the PayPal button below. This sweet, adorable girl needs to get back to her love-filled life with Carla and the Rogers family, and the sooner the better!
Fawn's story, as told her mom, Carla:
"Fawn came to us in May 2001 at the age of eight. She was an owner release that we took in with the intentions of only fostering. The owner was going to put her down that day. There were a couple of other people interested in adopting her but when Eric picked her on up on May 19, 2001, and she jumped right into the truck with him, we knew that we were going to keep her. She wasn’t the best looking dog at that time but she had the best personality. She had mange and open sores all over her and her skin was very dry. The people that had her allowed her to run freely on their property and made her sleep on hard surfaces because they said she chewed everything (she has not chewed one thing since we got her). She had been bitten by a groundhog on the leg which she constantly licked. We had the mange treated and I used Skin-so-Soft on her ears and other dry spots. We got her to stop licking the sore and it finally healed. In no time at all she became a beautiful girl! We could not have asked for a better dog.
Everything was going good with our pack, three females and one male, until June of 2003. We have a younger female that was always very submissive to Fawn. She saw that Fawn was getting older and wanted to move up in the pack. Her and Fawn got into a fight that was pretty bad and Fawn ended up getting the worse part of it. They both went to Southpaws for stitching up but Fawn had to stay overnight due to a puncture wound in her stomach. She had to have exploratory surgery to ensure that there wasn’t anything internally that was punctured. She had a drain in her leg and other multiple wounds on her. After Fawn healed from the wounds, we noticed that she was having problems walking and that she was losing the use of her back legs. She could use her legs but they were always going a different way than what her front-end was going. She would also drag her back feet to where it started wearing down her toenails to the quick. Recently, at times, she will lose control of her bowel movements. She does not seem to be in pain but it is hard for her to walk and she will fall down a lot. She cannot do any smooth surfaces and will purposely walk where there are carpets.
We took Fawn to our regular vet to see what the problem was and he diagnosed arthritis. At that time, it wasn’t that bad so we accepted that. She started to get worse so we went for a second opinion and had x-rays done. That vet diagnosed spondylosis of the spine. We did acupuncture with no difference. We decided to take her to Dr. Knoeckel at Southpaws for another opinion. He suggested that we have a MRI done because it could be one of three things and without the MRI we would not know what it is and how to treat it. He said that it could be a tumor on her spine, a herniated disc or degenerative disease. The MRI was scheduled for March 1st."
Updates:
March 1, 2004 - Fawn went in for her MRI today and instead of them just scanning her back they also had to do her neck since there was definitely something at the very end of the back scan. So all in all, the MRI was $2K. The good thing is that she does not have a tumor but instead a compressed disc between her 5th and 6th vertebrae. We have scheduled the surgery for Tuesday, March 9th. This will cost approximately $2500. There was no option to not do the surgery. Once you know what it is and know that there is a great chance of it being fixed and her getting most of the use of her legs back it has to be done without question!
March
11, 2004 - (from Fawn's mom, Carla)
She had the surgery
on Tuesday, was still weak on Wednesday (we thought we would be able to bring
her home
that
day)
so he wanted to keep her for another day.
We were able to bring her home today, Thursday. She gave us the "I am so
mad at you look" when we first got her but is back to her old self now.
She can't get around on her own so we have to use a sling to walk her. She's
alert and hasn't given up her love for food.
As for the outcome
of the surgery, Fawn was suffering from herniation of the disc between her
5th and 6th cervical vertebrae.
This herniated material was compressing
her spina, causing
discomfort and rear limb weakness. The doctor was able to access this material
and remove some of it, partially decompressing the cord. Unfortunately, this
was
a very chronic lesion causing a lot of adhesions and excess blood supply to
the area. It had also caused some permanent damage to the cord. Due to this,
he was unable to decompress the cord completely. This also resulted in
her condition being a bit worse at this time then it was before surgery. However,
we expect this to improve over the next week to 10 days. I can't be certain
at this time how complete her recovery will be, nor at which rate it will
recur,
but we expect to see significant improvement by the time we bring her in for
suture removal in two weeks.
