Patience on Wheels

Patience was found dragging herself along the side of a highway in Oklahoma over Memorial Day weekend in 2016. It’s assumed she had been hit by a car. She was around 4 months old at the time.

Luckily a kind-hearted person saw the little pup, scooped her up, and brought her to safety. Patience’s life had already changed when she was hit by the car, but over the course of the next few days and months it would change again, immeasurably for the better.

Soon after being found, Patience went to live at Lone Pine Ranch Animal Shelter in Arkansas. Before they could even begin thinking about how to help her use her back legs again, the immediate need was treating the secondary infections she was battling. Her back legs and tail were covered in the deep sores and cuts that she received from pulling herself along the road. Thankfully Patience was a fighter, and eventually the infections healed.

At Lone Pine, Patience was loved by many volunteers who helped raise money for her wheelchair, veterinary visits, and physical therapy sessions. Everyone fell madly in love with this little girl with her deep brown eyes. And it is without a doubt their love and care that helped Patience.

Nearly 6 months passed and then it was time for Patience to make her way north to find her forever home. And just two weeks after arriving in Massachusetts, she found us! Patience came to live with us – her mom, dad, two doggie sisters, and one kitty cat sister – on December 27, 2016.

In laymen’s terms, Patience cannot use her back legs (“half paralyzed”) and she is bowel and urinary incontinent.

Over the past year, Patience has seen more than a dozen experts – from veterinarians to physical therapists to neurologists – and everyone agrees the damage is to her T11 and T12 vertebrae. The trauma, again presumably from being hit by a car, basically smooshed (clearly a technical term) these two vertebrae together. As a result, the normal signals that would move in an instant from her brain down her spinal cord to control movement (“lift my back paw” or “wag my tail” or “squat to potty”) get stuck.

(And before you worry, this does not in any way affect her quality of life or overall happiness. The world has rarely seen a happier dog, unless maybe it’s one of Patience’s doggie sisters. They’re both goofballs too.)

We don’t know. We know she is a super determined pup, so if ever there was a pup who could walk again it would be her! But it’ll be a matter of time, physical therapy appointments, and exercises at home every day. If she doesn’t walk, it’s not because she failed, or we failed, or physical therapy failed. It’s just because her injuries were too much to overcome. (We find ice cream helps if we think about this too much. Or cookie dough.)

In the time we’ve had Patience she has made amazing progress. (We don’t attribute that to us, by the way, but to her!) It’s funny that we used to get excited even when she would just slightly kick her back legs while she was sleeping. But she’s come so far since then: she can stand herself up using just her back leg muscles (rather than just pulling herself up with her front legs), she can correct her feet on her own when they cross, she pushes off with her back legs in her wheelchair more, she can take wobbly steps, and she sometimes seems to know when she has to go to the bathroom. (“Oh hi, Patience! Why did you decide to randomly come and stand next to the couch? Look at you standing! Wait! Do you have to poo?!!”)

All of this is amazing progress for her! And she may totally progress more, and we’re hoping to help her get there! But it may be this is as far as she gets. And if so, that’s okay. She’s a very, very happy girl either way!

For the first two months after we adopted Patience we went to physical therapy sessions twice a week, and did daily exercises (multiple times each day) with her at home. At physical therapy she does all sorts of fun things (well, she thinks they’re fun because she gets to eat peanut butter while she does them) which help increase her muscle tone and strength and “remind” her how to get signals from her head to her back legs. She also works out on an underwater treadmill and receives laser therapy (with doggles!).

We’ve since graduated to physical therapy once a week and, of course, we still do exercises with her at home multiple times each day. The exercises we do at home focus a lot of increasing strength in her back legs. She also loves, loves, loves to do her version of “walking” in the yard which is great practice for her! Soon she’ll be starting acupuncture too.

If you’re in Massachusetts and your pup needs physical therapy, we highly recommend Animotion Animal Rehabilitation Center. Their staff are truly fantastic! (And nope, we’re not being paid to say that; though they do give a lot of peanut butter to Patience!) If you’re not in Massachusetts, check out their website to get a feel for what you should search for locally.

Patience doesn’t seem to have much awareness of her back half, so we have to assume she “can’t feel” discomfort when she sits all goofy like she does. Our guess is it probably looks more upsetting to people (because we’re not used to seeing dogs sit like that) than it feels to her. She can turn herself into a good ole’ pretzel from time to time!

We correct her placement when we can – not because it might be hurting her (again, because it doesn’t seem to), but because it’s helpful to “remind” her brain and body how to sit correctly. It’s the same concept when she pulls herself along the floor or out in the yard. When she pulls herself we just try to make sure she doesn’t drag herself on too rough of material (i.e. sidewalk, asphalt) simply because she wouldn’t realize if she cut herself.

That’s left over from her initial injuries when she was found dragging herself along the side of the highway. She has several smaller bald patches all along both back legs and the tip of her tail too. The bald patches are totally healthy, they’re just…well, bald!

Yup! She has a great diet and gets loads of extra protein each day from peanut butter (the #1 motivator for Patience) when we do her physical therapy exercises with her at home. But we know why you’re worried about that because it was our first thought when we met her too…well, maybe our second thought after, “Oh my gosh! She is adorable!!! I LOVE HER!!!”

The skinniness you notice – i.e. where her spine shows prominently on her lower back or her skinny back legs – is from muscle atrophy. She hasn’t been able to use the muscles on her back half since Memorial Day weekend in 2016. Over time, the muscles shrink…and it leaves our girlie looking skinny. But rest assured she is the perfect weight. (And remember, having her with loads of extra weight wouldn’t do any service to her: it’d be much harder for her to stand herself up!)

And yup, sometimes her shoulders can look odd in pics too. But that’s not skinniness: it’s muscle which sometimes looks even more prominent depending on the lighting in a photo. Her shoulders and front legs are incredibly muscular from all the extra work they do for her every day. Our girl is ripped like a body builder on her top half. Seriously, this girl is strong!

Nope! If anything, Patience plays rougher with Pepperoni. (And Pepperoni is blind and deaf, so she has a few things stacked against her too!) Pepper and Patience adore BIG wrestle sessions, mouth wrestling, eating each other’s faces, and generally beating the poop out of one another. (All of this is usually followed by several hours of them snuggled up together.) Neither of them take their play sessions to an aggressive level, and are both pretty respectful when they’ve accidentally nipped a bit too hard. Pepper is also great for Patience’s exercise. There are times when they play tug of war that Pepper helps pull Patience into a stand! But mostly they just have lots of fun together! Loud, dinosaur-sounding fun, but fun nevertheless.

When she lived at Lone Pine Ranch Animal Shelter in Arkansas they held a few fundraisers to raise money to purchase her wheelchair. It’s from Ruff Rollin’ and it is amazing! It’s super sturdy and perfect for the beach and “off-roading.” And the folks who run Ruff Rollin’ are super nice and responsive. We’ve been really impressed with them! (And nope, we’re not being paid to say that.)

Patience loves her wheelchair, and she really loves running at top speed in it. (Extra bonus points if she gets to run over one of her sisters when she’s in it!) Though she often just scoots around on “Patience Power” when she’s in the house (which helps encourage her to use her back legs too), she knows we keep her wheelchair in the mudroom closet. And whenever we open that closet…zoom! Here comes Patience asking for her wheels!

When she was rescued one of the volunteers who first worked with her named her Patience because she thought her forever family would need a lot of patience for all of her care. It turns out, she’s pretty easy to take care of! (Okay, maybe the diaper changes and the physical therapy exercises are a little time consuming; but she’s so stinkin’ adorable that we don’t mind!)

Sometimes we think her name refers to the fact that she actually needs to have patience for herself. This little gal is so eager to walk that she will try to go at top speed when she stands up, despite the fact that her back legs aren’t coming along with her. If she could slow down just a bit, we think she’d be able to walk better. But Patience doesn’t take anything in life slowly!

One of Patience’s extended rescue family likes to say that Patience’s name refers to the fact that she has to be patient with all of us silly humans, given everything we have to do to her! Diaper changes, physical therapy exercises, wearing doggles for laser treatments. It’s true: this girlie puts up with a lot!

Patience’s injuries left her bowel and urinary incontinent which means she has little to no control over when she “needs to go.” So when we’re inside the house or riding in the car, she wears a diaper to help prevent accidents/leaks. (It’s basically the same concept as a human baby.) But if we’re outside together, on a walkie or in the yard, she’s almost always a naked pup!

She hardly ever has accidents. (And if she does, it’s usually because she ate too many sticks it the yard and her tummy is upset. This inevitably results in a bath or two that day!)

Most times we’re able to change Patience’s diaper even before she’s done anything in it. (Yay! Clean diapers!) And we change her about 5 times a day: as soon as we get up, mid-morning, mid-afternoon, around dinner time, and then before bedtime. There was one time it was 8 changes in a day (whew!), but that’s an anomaly for her.

When we first got Patience she did have accidents more frequently. Multiple times a day, in fact. But that was because a) she wasn’t on a set schedule yet, and b) we didn’t quite know what we were doing! So if your pup has been having recent incontinence problems, or if you want to adopt a pup similar to Patience, have a little patience with yourself too. It takes time, but you and your pup can eventually get a rhythm down. (From the day we adopted Patience, we started writing down when she ate/woke up/went to sleep and what time she went potty. It helped us tremendously to see patterns.)

If it’s warm out, we take Patience outside to change her. But when it’s cold or raining, we change Patience inside with the help of a puppy pad. She’ll stand between one of our legs, with her head facing the opposite direction of the way we’re facing. This way we can support her with our knees and still have our hands to work.

Well, at least one of our hands! One hand/arm is actually looped under her belly to make sure she doesn’t start “sinking.” (Sometimes she can stand for a little bit of the potty process, but she almost always eventually sinks. Which makes it very fun for us because we have to make sure she doesn’t sink into whatever business she’s just done on the ground or puppy pad!)

So what’s the other hand doing? Some dogs who are incontinent need “expressing” done on their bowels and bladder. If your pup is like this, or the pup you’re thinking about adopting is like this, talk with your vet about the proper way to do it safely. (There are some great YouTube videos on it too. But again, check with your vet because you could accidentally cause some real damage.)

We’re a bit luckier because Patience just needs a cold wet wipe rubbed up and down her back legs and voila! She goes!

(Extra bonus: using the wet wipes like this helps clean up any pee that gets on her back legs or feet. Yup, it happens and you have to make sure it doesn’t because it can burn them over time. Learn something new every day, right?!)

So the wet wipe approach almost makes it sound like a quick process. It’s not. (Well, at least peeing isn’t. Pooing she’s all “one and done” in two seconds flat.) It definitely takes Patience extra time because she doesn’t pee at once like most doggies do, and we have to make sure she clears out her bladder enough to help reduce the risk of infection. All told, from stripping off the old diaper to putting on the new one? It probably takes about 5-7 minutes each time. (Which isn’t that bad until you remember you are standing partially upside down over a dog’s bottom that entire time, supporting her with one arm, while taking care of her with your other arm, and somehow fending off two other dogs and a cat who want to be part of the action too. Oh the craziness we get up to!)

But again, that’s just Patience. Every dog is different. So if you’re facing this with your pup, or thinking of adopting a pup like Patience, your experience may be different. Either way, it’s definitely worth it! And a great resource to learn more is at HandicappedPets.com. (Nope, we’re not being paid to promote them.) Not only do they have a lot of resources for pets with all sorts of handicaps, but they have a fantastic page on bowel incontinence. (And THAT is a sentence we never thought we’d write!)

We originally used doggie diapers, but quickly determined two things: 1) they’re useless, and 2) they’re super expensive. Each doggie diaper cost about $1.25/diaper – and if you’re changing your pup around 5 times each day, every day of the year…it adds up. Not to mention the darn things seemed to pop off every other minute and they leaked even when they DID stay on.

Thus into our life came this most amazing video on YouTube. The music is entertaining, yes…but the message is perfect! And it taught us exactly how to cut tail holes into human baby diapers.

In the video, he uses masking tape. We found just regular ole’ scotch tape works just as well and it’s easier to dispense. Other than that, this is exactly what we do. Patience’s dad cuts the holes, Patience’s mom tapes ’em up. Assembly line for the win!

The video also references a size “small” for diapers which, we quickly discovered, doesn’t seem to be a size for diapers in the US. The easiest way to figure it out is measuring your dog’s waist size and sort of going from there. (Not an exact science, nope.) In our case, taking Patience’s weight into account didn’t help us because she has so little muscle mass on her back half that it skewed our numbers incorrectly. Your mileage may vary, though.

We initially guesstimated Patience would be a size 4, but she’s actually a size 6 in human diapers. Our advice: measure, and then take a guess by buying a pack of diapers (not the jumbo packs, just the smallest pack you can buy), and give it a try. Yes, you’ll probably have to do this a few times and waste like $20 until you find the size that works, but you will actually save thousands of dollars over the course of a year. (Wow, that sounded like an infomercial.)

To review, extra bonus points are awarded to human diapers because: 1) the kind we use cost only around 20 cents/diaper, 2) they stay on better, and 3) they’re super absorbent and don’t leak. Yes, it’s a bit of a time investment every few days prepping diapers (maybe like 10-15 minutes to do 3 days’ worth), but it’s entirely worth it for the savings and the effectiveness!

On top of the human diapers we do use cloth doggie diapers (we call these her “dress diapers”). Some folks use these as the actual diaper, we use them because it helps her look snazzy and (more importantly) they do help keep the human diaper on better. Especially when her and Pepperoni are playing together: Pepper loves to pull off Patience’s diapers!

Patience’s other gear includes baby wipes (again, way less expensive than doggie wipes) and extra absorbent doggie pads purchased in bulk from Amazon. We started out with much larger doggie pads in the beginning when we were first learning how to change her inside (in our hope to not get anything on the floor!), but as we’ve gotten better (and more confident) at changing her we’ve reduced the doggie pad size which helps keep costs down too.

Some folks swear by the reusable/washable dog pads…but nope, we can’t do it. No matter how high a heat we washed them, they still smelled of pee to us. So yes, we are adding to the landfill. But hey, we adopted an incontinent dog in a wheelchair so hopefully that’ll offset our karma.

Probably the most important thing to keep in mind when you adopt a special needs dog is that they are more than their disability. When we adopted Pepperoni she was only 6 months old, but we assumed the more challenging part initially would be that she was blind and deaf. But it was actually her “just being a puppy” that kept us on our toes! The blind and deaf part was easy in comparison.

It’s the same thing with Patience. When we’re on walkies or out in the yard she’s in a wheelchair. And many people’s initial reaction to her is, “Oh, the poor thing.” Understandably she gets pity from humans, but she’s not unhappy in the slightest. She’s active, playful, loving, and yup, sometimes a bit naughty. Just like any other pup. And just like any other pup, wheelchair or not, we have to work with her on all sorts of things like sharing toys, not eating our entire hand when she gets treats, walking politely, and not “boxing” at people with her front legs when she greets them excitedly. (And just like any other doggie parent, we’re not always successful!) She can’t walk, and she’s in a wheelchair, but that doesn’t mean she gets to be a bully to the cat, ya know? (The cat laughs at this sentence. As if any dog could EVER bully her!) So pups with disabilities? They’re just like other pups but with an extra bit of spice and responsibility.

If you’re thinking about adopting a pup in a wheelchair, chances are your pup may benefit from some sort of physical therapy. So you’ll want to consider if you have a few minutes each day to do a bit of exercise or massage with them. (That doesn’t mean you have to go to a physical therapist every week like we do. You could, if it works with your pup and makes sense for their injury, but that’s up to you.) You’ll also need to be comfortable with the extra time it takes getting in/out of the house or the car. It definitely takes a few minutes to “gear up” Patience in her wheelchair and, in her case, the feet straps that keep her back feet from dragging along the sidewalk. So if you prefer pups where you can just “put on the leash and go” then a wheelchair pup would be an adjustment for you. If you have stairs in your house, you’ll need to be able to carry your pup when they’re not in their wheels and assist them when they are in their wheels. Oh! And the wheelchairs? Especially the ones for larger dogs take up way more room in your trunk/closet than you might think! There’s more “stuff” to think about with wheelchairs, of course, but that’s probably the parts that impact our day to day life.

If you’re thinking about adopting a pup who is incontinent, be very honest with yourself about the time commitment, the additional costs (assuming you go the diaper route like we do), and that you will be helping your dog pee/poo multiple times each day (and if you live anywhere it’s cold, some of those times are going to be inside). Sometimes there are accidents. Sometimes they pee on your hand. And yup, sometimes there are poop explosions. On your hand. There’s more laundry. There’s more cleaning. (If you’re wondering: there’s no additional smell. Assuming you clean up any accidents, of course, it’s just like with human babies in diapers. You change ‘em, it smells for a minute until you bag it up, but then it’s gone.) There are impromptu emergency dog baths just as you were headed out to meet friends. There’s a diaper bag – for the dog. There’s interrupting dinner to change a dog. And if you’re used to being gone from your house for long periods of time, there’s knowing your dog probably can’t “hold it” so you’ll either need to work from home, use doggie day care, or have a dog walker.

(And if you’re thinking of adopting a pup who is in a wheelchair and is incontinent, then combine those two paragraphs above and add in an extra bit of comedy with timing around bathroom breaks. Especially in a 2-story house. Don’t squeeze! Such a hoot!)

We share all of the above to not imply in any way that it’s hard taking care of Patience. It’s actually not. In the most bizarre way, she just slipped almost seamlessly into our lives and our schedule. Sure, there are times when one of us might say, “I’ll pay you a million dollars if you change her diaper before bed tonight.” But mostly we’re just thrilled beyond belief that we have this most amazing, funny, inspiring, awesome dog who loves us. And we feel lucky to be part of her story. But we want to make sure in our adoration for Patience – and the fact that we only show her cutest photos (no photos of poop explosions, no siree!) – that we acknowledge it does take time…and yup, a bit of patience.

Long story short: if you are thinking of adopting a special needs dogs, YAY! We definitely encourage that and wish more people would consider it. But just be honest with yourself. Wheelchairs and diapers aren’t for everyone. And, of course, at any time a perfectly healthy pup may start needing a chair or diapers too. Life happens. Thankfully we humans are strange creatures, and the things we do for the ones we love often knows no bounds.