The family dogs....
(Buster the Husky and Mila the…. small white dog) are both rescues and often photo-bomb a video, or make other special appearances…. including bits of floating fluff (AKA Husky glitter) which always finds its way into the camera shot.
More often than not a hair that is invisible to the eye, but very obvious on camera usually sits on the tip of my paintbrush unnoticed until the editing stage!
But it very nearly all ended in disaster.
One morning in February 2022 when we still had piles of boxes everywhere after moving house, the two dogs were racing around the garden. They had been zooming around for a while when I heard a God-almighty doggy scream. That sort of scream you know really isn’t good and I ran outside.
Buster was crying and trying to run to me, but his back legs were all floppy as he dragged them behind him to get to me.
It was a Sunday afternoon and after a call to the out-of-hours Vet, we arranged to meet them at our local veterinary practice.
Trying to keep a terrified 34Kg Husky still while we carried him to the car was not easy, but with the help of my brother-in-law, we managed it.
When we got to the Vet, she prepared us for the worst. Buster had no sensation or strength in his back half. After XRays to check he had not somehow broken his back, there was nothing more she could do for him and his only chance was a very expensive trip to a Spinal Specialist Vet Centre an hour’s drive away.
Thank God he was insured is all I can say.
After a week at the specialist centre, the specialist Vet concluded that what had happened to Buster was common in big dogs. They can jump for a ball and come down paralyzed. While Buster was a very severe case and was on the knife edge of being put down, he was on the right side of the line if we were willing to take on the issues of a paraplegic Husky who just wants to run and play.
But he had started to improve a little although he still needed help standing, let alone walking. When we brought him home, we had to support his back half in a sling which was like walking with a doggy handbag.
I had to give him a Physio workout three to four times a day and with a lot of TLC, he has made slow but steady progress.
Now about 10 months later he can walk and even run a short way without his back half giving up and collapsing in a heap.
So that is why you may see him limping in a video.
While we have no idea how much better he will get… he is still Buster.
…..and still happily dispensing fluff all over the place ready to float into camera shot.