Meet Audree-Rose
A little girl who has never said never.
Audree-Rose is a 6.5-year-old pedigree long-hair silver dapple. When she was 12 months old she had bilateral Pes Varus surgery. This surgery was to correct her gait as she was quite bow-legged with a degree of 21% and 25%. Injury to their legs can happen when they are puppies as their bones are almost “floating” and jumping down from beds, furniture etc can be the result of one bone that grows slower than the other at or about the 4th month of age. The surgeon cuts a V in the shorter bone and inserts an artificial bone graft to lengthen the bone to be the same as the other. There are 2 bones in the lower leg. She had external metal braces on both rear legs for 10 weeks. Did this surgery help or hinder back issues, I’m not sure as there are several conflicting expert opinions, however at the time we made the decision to have the surgery based on a specialist review of her.
In April 2019 after some very rough play with her dachshund sister, resulting in hitting the corner of the wall in the hallway, she yelped and couldn’t use her rear legs. She went to a specialist for assessment and was diagnosed with a disc extrusion at L1-L2 grade high 3 bordering on grade 4 and had surgery later that day. The surgery went well and her rehab angel that had looked after her after Pes Varus offered to take her in for the 12 weeks recovery of crate rest, red light therapy and daily exercises. She was up on her feet reasonable quickly, had a slight deficit on her left side but was walking well within 4-5 weeks Once home we continued with the red light therapy, exercises and hydrotherapy to put some strength back in her legs.
In July 2020 we noticed early one morning that she didn’t seem herself and was rather wobbly on her feet – Lockdown in Brisbane had just finished. Off to the specialist again, this time it was T11-T12/T12-T13 and a grade 3 Surgery went well and she went back to her second home to commence recovery with her other Mummy and dachshund brothers and sisters. Again her recovery was good – slow and steady and she was back to ruling the household once again.
But 4 months later in November 2020, it happened again L3-L4 grade 3 and it was like groundhog day, surgery and back to her rehab angel she went this time for 9 weeks.
In August 2021 we had another scare and back to see the specialist yet again. Her CT scan wasn’t conclusive, he thought there was some damage around L2-L3 and suggested an MRI to confirm. This still didn’t show an extrusion but she was showing pain in that area and she was grade 1 advancing to low grade 2 overnight and then back to grade 1 the following day.
This time there was no surgery and off she went to Mummy 2 for 8 weeks of crate rest. Audree is doing very well this time, walking and placing her feet very well. She has a swagger but that is part of Audree and has always been her. She still stumbles if on uneven ground but corrects very quickly and doesn’t lose balance. She is slowly returning to normal having longer and longer times of free-range out of the pen and she will come home in the next week or so to her parents that adore her and her 3 dachshund sisters.
Throughout all her ordeals she has remained a stubborn and determined little girl, takes everything in her stride and generally copes with rehab well, although not even dried chicken breast will entice her to do her stretches if she doesn’t want to.
Never say never to a dachshund – they are amazing creatures
Absolutely love her to the moon and back as does Mummy 2 and her other family (sometimes I think she just wants to go to visit, but I’d rather IVDD wasn’t her excuse for a holiday up there)
By Anne Stevenson – Furmum extraordinaire
