Blu's Story

Blu was born in February of 2013. He was sold to a gentleman in Alabama and at eight weeks of age he headed to his forever home. But sometimes things don't always follow the Disney fairy tale storyline. In late September we received a call from his owner. Apparently Blu was having trouble walking. He dragged his hind feet and had a hard time balancing his back end. The owner wasn't sure what would have caused it. He remembered leaving him out in the yard one time and then hearing a loud yelp from Blu. He came back and was limping. From that point things seemed to deteriorate. He had a score of tests run on him but they couldn't figure out what was wrong. In the end, they gave him a shot of cortizone and that seemed to help. Of course, that only masked the problem and when the cortizone wore off, Blu could no longer walk.

The owner didn't want to keep him. A crippled dog is not most people's idea of a perfect pet. So Maria drove up to Alabama on her birthday to retrieve Blu. She knew that if we didn't take him, he would be put down. That was not something she was going to allow. When she called me and told me about Mr. Blu I knew we would be keeping him. He was too "full of life", as Maria put it. So before she even got home, I was buying a doggie wheelchair for our returning pup. At just 10 months of age, Mr. Blu was going to be confined to a wheelchair. It was a very sad reality but we were determined to give him the best care and attention we could.

It wasn't an easy task taking care of our special boy. He couldn't stand up, he couldn't control his bladder, and he couldn't control his bowels. He wore diapers most of the time and we had to build a special enclosure for him so he could move around when he wanted to. Of course, he would drag himself around with his front legs when he wasn't in his wheelchair so we had to make sure he wouldn't injure himself in the process. We spent many hours just laying with him, petting him and scratching behind his ears. That was a special treat for him and he would let you do it for as long as you wanted. He seemed so happy for a pup in his situation. 

Once we got all his vet records, we took them to our local vet. They pinpointed the problem immediately. Blu had suffered a spinal cord injury. Probably on that day he heard him yelp. All the tests they ran turned up nothing. His owner spent over $5000 on vet bills while they ran every test under the sun. They even did a spinal tap to test for meningitis! And the shot of cortizone no doubt made things worse. He should have been confined to a crate and his movement should have been kept to a minimum. But that is not what happened and his condition got much worse then it should have gotten. It was a real shame. Sometimes common sense trumps spending endless amounts of money on test after test. The X-ray clearly showed a lesion on the spine. All his symptoms should have indicated that he had a trauma to his spinal cord. But that was water under the bridge at this point. We couldn't go back and change any of that.

He took to the wheelchair like a fish to water. He would get so excited when we brought the wheelchair over to him. Getting him into it was not an easy task however, especially for Maria. Blu was a big boy and trying to lift a 100+ pound dog into that wheelchair required a lot of effort. But we did what we had to do. Once you cut him lose he was off to the races. He wore booties on his rear paws so he wouldn't rub them raw when he dragged them behind him. It's amazing how quickly animals can adapt to their environment. He got rather good at maneuvering around in that cart of his but sometimes his enthusiasm got the best of him and he tried to turn too fast. Roll-overs occasionally happened. If he was zipping around the yard and then all of a sudden you didn't see him anymore, that was always a good indication that he took a turn too fast. You'd come around the side of the house and see him there laying in the grass patiently waiting for someone to get his cart upright for him.

While Blu was getting used to his new home and situation, we were looking for a way to improve his condition. We had noticed that he would kick off with his hind feet occassionally when he was in his cart. It led us to believe that he might still be able to recover some of his motor skills in those hind legs. We enrolled him in a rehabilitation program that used aqua therapy as part of the treatment regiman. I bought fishing waders for Maria so she could work with him in our pond. We spent weeks working with him and he was making progress. He really liked all the massages he got from the two of us. He had no idea why we were doing, all he knew was it felt good. Imagine being a dog and you can't even scratch yourself! That's just not right!

A couple months had gone by and he was using his hind legs more and more when he was in the cart. One night we were out back with all the dogs and Blu was tethered in his "hanging out" spot. One of our bitches happened to be in heat and was running around with all the other girls. We didn't think anything of having Blu out. It wasn't like he was going to do anything. Well, apparently the need to reproduce can overcome damn near any obstacle. It took us a few seconds for what we were looking at to register. When we came around the bushes, there he was - standing up and trying to introduce himself to the bitch in heat. We couldn't believe it. I can't tell you how magical that moment was. He got up and was standing all by himself! It was a miracle as far as we were concerned. For him, it was just mind over matter. Well, maybe not exactly the mind...

During the next couple months he showed remarkable progress. He finally got to the point he no longer needed his cart to get around. Now he runs around unrestrained by his wheels. He still does not have full control over his legs but they are strong enough to get him around with the other dogs. The diapers and the wheelchair have been retired from service.

Today Blu is a happy, healthy cane corso. Only if you watch him carefully can you notice there is something different about him. He still loves massages and getting scratched behind the ears and he still has his sweet, tranquil nature about him. He is our mellow fellow. Part of me believes he is just grateful to be able to walk again. It makes me smile everytime I see him trotting off to the pond with all the other corsos. Don't ever let someone tell you that miracles don't exist. We have proof that they do. 

And that's Blu's story.