Wicked Rural Homestead
Live Simply
Canine Catch-up
The day started like any other. Ryan called me on his way into work and while we were chatting he said “ohh doberman puppies.”
A random statement even for our morning commute conversations.
“What now?”
“A sign, on the side of the road, it says ‘doberman puppies'”
“I’ve always like dobies, my aunt had one and always claimed it was the best dog she ever had.”
“Well, if I’m late coming home you know what happened.”
I laughed and told him to have a good day at work. Around 6pm, almost two hours after he called saying he was headed home I started to think, “holy shit, we might be actually getting a puppy.”
As usual, I was wrong.
A little after 7pm he pulled into the driveway and got out of the car with one jet black puppy under each arm, which if you do the math, is two dogs. Two of the cutest sweetest puppies I’ve seen in a while. Koa was over the moon with the little critters. His 80lbs of lab twisted and wiggled, sniffing and smelling every inch of the tight knot of sleek black fur. This brother and sister duo would become Kailani and NaPali in honor of Ryan’s years on Kauai.
When I inquired why he had brought home twice the agreed upon amount of dog, he said he couldn’t leave the girl. They were the last of a large litter and when he came into the house she was hiding under the couch. The breeder had a pack of 12 large dogs and the puppy was obviously wary of all the older, much larger dogs. When I got a good look at the size of their feet I began to worry a bit. These were going to turn into some big dogs.
And they did just that.
For the first couple months, anytime Koa would run over to them, Kaliani would cower and whimper even when he didn’t get close. Koa is such an amazing dog, he has always been good at reading other animals, and even though he was super excited about the puppies he would take care not to scare her and gave ample space until she relaxed or came to him.
When they were almost 6 mos old I noticed Kalani was limping. This was hardly a surprise as her brothers are each 80 lbs (at that time. Currently Pali is easily 100 lbs) and they all play VERY hard. With a huge yard to run in, and stacks of logs and wood chips to play on, it was no surprise she had overdone it. We kept her separate from the boys the rest of the week and her limp improved. It wasn’t until day four or five that I noticed some asymmetrical abnormalities in her back left leg. When she lays down flat, one of her knees pops up but the other doesn’t.
Looking down as she is standing, one side is bulging and the other flank flat.
Even though she wasn’t limping anymore I made an appointment with our vet, sure she had a dislocation or something. When vet tech called and told me I could pick her up, she said that I needed to meet with the Dr. to discuss her X-rays and the abnormalities they found. I asked if it was a dislocation or something worse and what our next steps were and she just said “there are no easy answers, you’re going to have to discuss it with her.”
Greeeeaaat.
I got to go into the back area of the Vet office and met with the head veterinarian who showed me the severely malformed hip and femur on our poor little lady.
Her left femur is at least 3cm shorter than the right, the ball and socket joint is not formed or fitted properly. The Vet’s initial recommendation was that amputation would likely be the best option. We sat on the floor with my groggy dog, looking through medical books for a malady that matched the unilateral dysplasia we were looking at, and could find nothing. $800 and an additional opinion from a radiologist later, we were able to rule out bone cancer and their opinion was that she had a severe injury very early in life that closed those growth plates causing the deformity. It probably also explains her fear of larger dogs running at her.
The treatment plan is going to involve expensive surgery of some kind, either an amputation, Femoral Head Removal Osteotomy or a total hip replacement. We have ruled out a hip replacement, it will be well over 10k and we just don’t have that kind of money. It seems like the FHRO offers the best prognosis for her mobility and mitigates the long term collateral compensation that will cause arthritis on her right side, if we remove her left leg. In this surgery the part of the femur that is interfacing poorly with the pelvis is removed eliminating the rubbing of bone on bone from dysphasia. The muscles, ligaments and other soft tissue heal to hold the joint in place crating a serviceable appendage with less risk of arthritis. The idea of lopping off a whole leg seemed premature at best.
I felt bad. I noticed she sought comfort (piling blankets and dog beds and utilizing the benefits of the couch way before her brother) but I attributed it to princess behavior when it turns out she has probably been in some level of pain as she grew with this joint so out of wack. I have been corrected a number of times when I state “I didn’t notice” because I did, and got her treatment. I still feel bad I didn’t take her behaviors as pain responses, but rather diva behavior. I was not looking forward to major surgery and recovery, but we’ve been here before. I prayed for guidance to make the right decision on her behalf, this is no small thing to navigate.
She has bad days. Days when NaPali and her play HARD and I can tell she’s feeling it, but pain is the best teacher and no matter what route we take she will have to be aware of her physiological differences for the rest of her life. Ryan was/is totally against her getting such a drastic procedure until she shows prolonged signs of disability, something I totally understand. It seemed preemptive to hobble a dog that runs like the wind and can outmaneuver and take down her much larger brother. We settled on the middle treatment plan, a FHRO and made the appointment for as soon as the snow melted.
The morning of the surgery, I took her in and she met the hotshot (read: expensive) surgeon, who travels all over Maine doing complicated operations that most clinics don’t have experience in. He examined her range of motion and mobility. I asked many, many questions about all of our reservations and concerns, from increased risk of injury because of her bone density, to improved prognosis with a preemptive surgery before she was done growing. Although the prognosis is better the earlier a FHRO is done the difference is not astronomical, his exact words were “we do this surgery on very young and very old dogs.”
Even though he was only at our vet for Kailani and one other dog that day, he offered no pressure or strong recommendation that it needed to be done immediately. I thanked him for his time and said we were going to hold off as of right now.
We know the future will come with complications, but we also have a detailed idea of what to do when that time comes and mitigating steps to take in the meantime. For me it came down to feeling that at this point, I couldn’t justify such a life altering procedure to HER. She is not looking to us for help or relief, yet. No one can really say when that day will come, could be tomorrow or in ten years, and maybe not at all. Her anatomy is already unique, her soft tissues are already creating that joint her malformed ball and socket can’t. She is noticing the result of overexubernt play and is setting limits for herself.
She is a happy, otherwise healthy puppy who is going to have some obstacles to overcome, but I’m super grateful she’s ours and we are hers. It only takes watching her run around the yard with her brothers to reassure me that she is not always in pain and her quality of life is good right now. I have become familiar with that look in an animal’s eyes when their body is betraying them and they seek for your intervention to bring relief. I’m far from perfect or all knowing when it comes to animal husbandry, but I have experience.
I know there is some disconnect since my last doggie post as Pele is no longer with us, and Koa has never been mentioned here until now. I will do an Ode to Pele in the future as I did for Honey and Isis, but her death was one of the good ones, the planned ones, where there was peace at the end of the path. It is also a story for another day and I have grown so tired of writing about death. Introducing our new dogs was a more welcome task.
Kailani and NaPali are the 8th and 9th dog of my life. They brining our pack back up to three on this side of the house. Since mom’s arrival, we have five dogs total on the homestead, and that’s enough for me. All the critters come with their share of concerns and limitations to our lifestyle, but coming home and being greeted by our happy version of Cerberus is pretty hard to beat.
Oh, we got another cat too.
Be well, and thank you for reading.
Wicked Rural Homestead 
Lovely stories. Thank you for sharing.
Your dad, on the death of my dog, sent me this, after saying, “There’s nothing much you can say to soothe the pain of losing a dog. They love you so much. But I thought you should see this.”
“I have sometimes thought of the final
cause of dogs having such short lives
and I am quite satisfied it is in
compassion to the human race; for if
we suffer so much in losing a dog after
an acquaintance of ten or twelve years,
what would it be if they were to live
double that time?”
~ Sir Walter ScottYour dad was the finest person I ever met.
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