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To have a Dachshund is to have a permanent baby. They are even shaped similarly, they act childish, and smile (yes, dogs smile), and wag their tails constantly. Dachshunds also love their own kind, and when two pause to play with one another on walks, the owners inevitably chat: “do you let yours sleep with you?”... “Of course” is always the answer. “Does yours burrow under the covers?” …of course…that's what they do after all!
My four and a half year old Dachshund, Nathan, has brought me so much joy since he came into my life at about eight months old. Whenever I need to calm down during a busy day at work, all I have to do is take a look at the picture on my desktop of Nathan running with a ball in his mouth, and when I'm on my way home after a difficult day, I can bring a smile to my face just by picturing him greeting me. I can tickle him or play ball endlessly with him, or just sit and smile as I watch him sleep and think of how precious he is.
 How lucky was I to be offered a puppy from the people at the Dachshund Rescue association of North America (DRNA)?!! Puppies go fast at shelters and rescues, but since I had put in the hours as a foster parent for 6 dogs over a three-month period, I had earned him and was offered first dibs. I knew within hours that this was the one foster that I would adopt too, when after the initial chaos, barking and hesitation on his part, he later fell asleep on my lap.
He came to me from a Long Island family. Nathan hadn't been abused necessarily, although I don't doubt that they hit him at least once, as he would cringe if someone approached him too quickly. Mainly, I think they yelled at him… a lot, and over crated him to keep him out of their way. I think the father worked and the mother already had her hands full and the children thought dogs were all fun and games, and so Nathan got crated and punished constantly. He wasn't potty trained when he came to my house, but he knew his name, so Nathan… You only need think of hotdogs… found a new home with me.
“It's scary when your dog goes down” is what the vet said to me to reassure me when I took my wobbling baby into the doctor, afterall, he had been through the same thing with his Dachshund years ago. See Dachshunds come with their problems too—Intervertebral Disk Disease, which can result in the dog becoming paralyzed. They shouldn't jump or go up or down stairs in hopes of preventing the disease from setting in.
There was no one incident that brought Nathan “down” in his rear legs, but one morning he was hiding and afraid to be touched. He didn't want to play with his ball----this was NOT my dog. He was quivering and grumbling in pain, and the next day he was worse…wobbly in the back legs (drunken legs I later learned they were called). I was not alone, as I soon learned. There was an entire network of people on the internet there to give others advice, veterinary surgical referrals, acupuncturist referrals, physical therapy referrals and more. There were ways to avoid the very costly surgery that could possibly correct Nathan's spinal problems too, and I sought them out.
First, you crate that dog! He can't come out except to eat and go to the bathroom. And you carry him outside for that. But weeks of strictly crating him, which was hard to do to Nathan, who had become so accustomed to freedom from the crate in his life with me, coupled with weeks of steroid therapy and vitamins proved worthless, and his ability to walk lessened with each passing day. The night I saw him unable to support himself to go potty, I knew that the next morning we would be heading in for the surgery that I had been struggling to avoid for him.
It was a good thing that there was a dog in the lobby at the animal hospital who had just undergone the same surgery. He was being checked out as I was checking Nathan in. I looked at his shaven back to my left, and Nathan staring back at me like I was sending him to his death as he was carried away to my right. I hadn't cried until that point.
There were no other options. It was this, or my dog wouldn't walk again. The vet told me Nathan had a 90% success rate too, and I held onto that thought throughout the next 5 nights as I arrived promptly at 7pm when the visiting hours kicked in.
 I'm not sure that I SHOULD have visited him the first night, when he just moaned and laid still, unable to wag his tail, much less walk. He ate for the first time since the surgery though, so I left with the vet telling me that was good. The next night, there was a small wag to tip of his tail when he saw me, and then a bigger wag on the third night. I became more hopeful, thinking that's got to mean he'll walk, after all, the tail is part of the spine. And so it went… “Maybe tomorrow we can tempt him with a ball, maybe tomorrow he'll try to stand, maybe tomorrow he'll regain bladder control and be able to come home.” Eventually, that was the case.
 It was three days after coming home when Nathan came out of his crate and took his first steps to greet me one evening. I think I shrieked with such surprise and joy that it startled him, and he dropped back to the floor wondering what he did wrong. Since then, every week brings back more nerve recovery in his spine, more feeling and more strength in his legs. I've been one of the lucky ones. Some dogs walk the day after surgery, some walk a year later, some never.
But when someone….like a pet, can bring you so much joy, you need to do everything in your power to return the favor. When you take the effort to seek out a pet that otherwise would be put down, or that was neglected, unwanted or mistreated in it's earlier life, you better make sure that little girl or guy has all the best opportunities for the rest of his or her life. Nathan can run again, and seeing that is something that's priceless.
-Carolyn Bednarski
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