I am so glad I didn’t listen to people when they told me things like “If you truly love your friend, end his suffering peacefully and cherish his memory forever.” because I would have missed seeing my old friend walk and poop again on his own and enjoy all the sniffing he so loves and I would have questioned if I had made the right choice till the day I died. If I had thought he was in constant pain I may have considered helping him out, but he wasn’t. He’s been alert and bright and at times a royal pain in the butt because he wanted company.

I am also glad I didn’t try the Dr. Franks Pet Pain Spray because I would be praising that stuff to everyone instead of giving the praise to God and Shadow’s will to walk again, funny how things work out. To us this is a miracle because when he first got hurt the Vet gave him a shot and put him on steroids for a period of time. Shadow didn’t even try to move and the Vet said he would probably never walk again, but we still believed we would one day see a miracle. It hasn’t been easy taking care of a handicapped dog, but it’s been well worth it to see him walk again.

It has been 9 months of taking care of our beloved Shadow and when he started flip flopping over by himself instead of me having to switch sides for him we knew he was getting stronger. He can’t get up all by himself, but when we help him with the belly sling go out he walks around a little bit in the yard and even poops on his own now, we’re so proud of him and his strong will. Of course he gets tired and has to plop down in the grass and rest awhile, but when the ducks next door start up he’s raring to go again, it makes my heart feel light.

The only problem now is I took all the fences down and now he can get at my bushes and plants so when I plant my garden next year I will have to fence it off again, but I have at least found something great to solve another problem. I have recently ran into the perfect way to make sure my garden or plants are watered perfectly and it’s called Ooze Tube Vegetable Drip Watering. Now how great is that? Next year when we take our vacation instead of bothering the neighbor or family to come over and water my tomatoes and plants or whatever else I decide to plant and grow all I have to do is set this up and we’re good to go.

In some of the photo’s below you can see how the steroids and Glucosamine turned his white coat brown where he urinated and no amount of washing helped, but since he is doing his business outside now, I’ll work on that later. I had even stopped the Glucosmine for all that time because I didn’t see that it was working, but I have now started giving it to him again and hope it will help build his stamina. Just seeing him move around at all is a joy. He now goes out at least 3 times a day and seems to get a little stronger each time, but it’s tiring. He still likes to lift his leg and water my plants.