Meet Our own deaf
Dane Ambassador
 Gender - Male
- Age/DOB - 1/22/09
- Height at the shoulder -
- Weight - 9 lb
- Spayed/Neutered - Not Yet
- Taken in on - 3/25/09
- Available as of - 9/25/09
- Housebroken - working on it
- Obedience trained - Not yet
- Good with other dogs - Yes
- with cats - Yes
- with kids - Yes
- with the elderly - Yes
- Temperament
- Ed is so young and so undersized we can't really tell much yet. He is
smart and very sweet. He is also calm and accepts life as it comes.
We
got
Ed from a couple in So. Oregon. He has a number of health issues in
addition to his deafness. He was 8-9
weeks old when we got him. He should have weighed between 25 and 40 lb.
at that age, but he was only 9 lb. He is deaf and has
some vision impairment, but sees well enough to get around just fine.
His hips and back legs don't look or work quite right at this point,
but again, that may be from malnutrition. We'll just have to wait and
see. Ed is such a good little boy, he happily stays in his crate,
chewing on his toys, sleeping, or just enjoying dozing in the sun.. He
only cries when he is hungry or needs to go
out. Most times he lets me know when he has to go, but sometimes, if I
can't respond soon enough, he will have an accident in his crate. He
has only had limited exposure to the big dogs, but has handled it well.
He basically follows me around or places himself in a strategic
position if I an coming and going past the same spot a lot. He is
inquisitive, likes to play with me or the other dogs (as long as they
don't get too rough) and is just an all around happy little guy.
Update 7/11 - As Ed grew over those first few weeks here with us,
and he put on
some much needed
weight, his physical problems got worse. He was still undersized and
underweight, but not anything like he had been. His back legs and hips
got worse every week, as did his general build. His legs weren't growing
at the same rate as the rest of his body and week by week they got shorter
and shorter relative to the rest of him. His upper front legs (the bone
called the humerus) was probably the worst, but it was clear he had serious overall bone
growth issues. His ability to use his back legs properly, deteriorated
until he was waddling along using both legs as one most of the time. And his
spinal deformities got more and more pronounced each week as well. So we took Ed to our
vet
and had a series of xrays done. We and our vet were shocked by what we
saw. His skeleton was so badly deformed it was amazing he could get
around at all. He had a host of problems. He tended to use his back legs
together
because he had almost no hip or knee joints and only one of them really
worked even halfway decently. His spine
was bad too. Most of his vertebrae were deformed and the joints between
them all looked wrong. He clearly had both bone and disc problems. The
sway and the arch in his back were both getting
worse as he grew. His poor
skeleton was so badly formed, he really didn't have a single good joint
or bone
in his body. Our vet asked us why we weren't going to just put the poor
little
guy down. The only answer we could give was that he was an amazingly
happy little boy, who
did not seem to be bothered by his limitations, did not ever seem to be
in pain, and loved his life. His best case prognosis was he wouldn't
likely survive to see his 6 month birthday. We said that was okay,
we'd give him the best life we could for as long as we could. We called
around and arranged for a donated cart, because the likelihood was he
wouldn't be able to walk on those bad back legs for very much longer.
But while his body was deteriorating, his heart and spirit were growing
stronger every day. He came out of his shell after his first week here,
and from then on his confidence and lust for life grew week by week. As
if what he lost physically, he gained in spirit. You have to know this
about Ed, to know why we were willing to go to these extremes,
because this is not normal for us. We believe that rescue must triage
its cases and spend its limited resources to do the most good for the
most dogs. We also believe there are things worse than death, that a
quality life is not just a goal, that it's a minimum standard. And
by some measures, Ed's life wasn't ever going to be of the quality one
would want for their puppy. But once he came here, Ed has always been so
happy and
clearly loved his life so much. We just couldn't call putting him to
sleep at that juncture fair to him or in his best interests.
Having decided not to have him PTS, we were faced another, even harder
decision. Do we treat him as some frail,
helpless cripple and protect him from possible injury and harm, or do we
let him live as normal life as he can, for as long as he can, and risk
an injury.
Clearly he would be safer if we protected him and didn't let him take
risks or play and act like a normal dog. But would his life be
worthwhile? Would he have a quality life if we did that? This is a hard,
hard question, and everyone will have to come to their own decision on
this one. We wrestled with this question for several days. And while we
all had a say in what happened to Ed, the final decision had to be mine.
In watching him try to run and play over those few days, it was clear
to me that trying to stop Ed from being a "wild and crazy guy," was not
going to be easy. It wouldn't have bothered the reserved, withdrawn
little puppy that first came to us, but this new Ed was not going to
take it well. He was in love with life and wanted to go for all the
gusto he could. That was clearer with each passing day. So my decision
was to let him live as normal a life as I
possibly could. Not to protect him any more than I would any other puppy
his age. To "help" him as little as possible. To let him run and play
and be a normal happy dog. We all
steeled ourselves for the day he played too hard or had an accident. We
all prepared ourselves to have to put him to sleep if that accident was
bad enough. We all prayed he wouldn't get hurt, however, we all prepared ourselves for
that eventuality.
But it hasn't come. Ed is now 2 1/2 years old. My wife and I adopted him
because we became so attached to him, and because his needs were so
"special," just like him. Our Adoptions Coordinator
argues with us every day about whose dog he really is. She is as
attached to him as we are. Ed is still very small, well his legs are
mostly. He is nearly as long as a Dane and his body and head are mostly sized like a Dane, if a
bit
on the small side. But his little stubby deformed legs look all our of
proportion to the rest of him. He's sort of the Dachshund of Danes. His back legs,
especially his right one, still have limited function and range of
motion. He can now walk on both back legs independently, in a wobbly sort of knocked kneed gait, but he still
uses them as one when he runs. His spine has arched even more and has a
distinct sway to it. It
is pretty much fused that way now. He can't straighten his back out or
do the typical head down/butt up stretch that Danes are known for. In
fact he can't even lay down normally. To lay down, he walks his front legs forward,
keeping his back feet in place and stretching his back legs out until he is on his knees, getting as low as
he can. Then he sort of plops over onto his side. And he can't get up
on the couch normally either. He gets his front end up on the couch,
takes a short break, and then hoists his whole rear end up using just
his front legs and tummy muscles. He has to toss his rump to the side
when he does this, because he really can't get his rear end up high
enough for his knees to clear otherwise.
Sounds like he has a terrible
life doesn't it? I guess somebody forgot to tell him that, though. He is
still the happiest creature on
this earth. He is top dog around here, and he makes sure everyone,
canine and human knows it. And while he can't do some things the normal
way, there is almost nothing he can't do and do on his own. Although he
is extremely people oriented and affectionate, he is very self
sufficient. He has a very "I can do it" attitude. About the
only things he can't do on his own are
getting up onto my bed, which is quite high off the ground, and jumping
into the back of the SUV, which is also quite high off the ground. Other
than that, he manages to do pretty much everything, though often
his way isn't the "usual" way. He can run, and I mean run full out, with
all the other dogs. He is faster than some, and slower than others, but
he can hold his own in the pack or one-on-one. He loves to run, I mean
really loves to run, and he does it a lot, sometimes all
by himself. He runs with wild abandon and this crazed joyful look on his
face, as if he knows he wasn't supposed to be able to do this, and he
wants to not only enjoy it as much as he can, while he can, but also to
thumb his nose at the gods and show them he beat them and beat the odds.
He can and does roughhouse and play with all the other dogs,
even those that are easily twice his size. He can run up and down the
stairs on the back deck (about 6 or 7 stairs) and he can do it at a full
run. We have never treated him like he couldn't do things and he has
never even considered the possibility that there were things he couldn't do. Sometimes he takes a while
to figure out how he can do them, but most every time, he has found a
way. He can even jump completely off the ground now. And as for the
getting on the bed or in the SUV, he does manage
that too, in his own special way. His way is to put his front feet and chest up on
the bed or SUV and then look back at me
with this help-me! look and then just wait for Daddy to come lift his
butt up for him. He developed this method when he was younger and
couldn't get up on the couch on his own (see lower left photo below).
Being the creative dog that he is, he has adapted it to other similar
situations now that he is a "big boy." But most of all, he has this
can-do attitude that carries hm through everything. If he slips or
falls, he simply picks himself up and keeps on going. No big deal. And
on those rare occasions when he can't do
something easily, he finds a way or a solution. Nothing bothers him or
stops
him. And he never sees himself as handicapped or limited. Fact is he'd
probably bark you right out of the house if he could hear you saying
such things.
It is likely Ed will not live all that long, not that Danes are all that
long lived to begin with. But remember, it was also likely he wouldn't live
to see 6 months of age, so who knows? What we do know is that when his
time comes, Ed, will have lived life to the absolute fullest. That none of us (him included) ever let his
"handicap" hold him back. And that he loved his life as much as we loved
him. And that is one hell of a lot. Believe me. Ed is loved beyond all
reason. And not just by us. Everyone one who meets him is amazed by his
spirit and his heart (and the truly observant are amazed by how spoiled
and self centered he is). He is a shining light to anyone one who thinks
their handicap defines them or limits what they can achieve. Our little
Special Ed is proof positive that you are only limited by your own
mind.
Click on any of these three stills above, to see the movies they were taken from.
We will post additional photos of Ed as time goes by, so check
back often.
And if you have any questions about Ed or any of our dogs,
email us or call us at
541-782-2242
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click on images above to see full sized
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"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader.
He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart.
You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion" - Unknown
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