Vets give Bo the dog a chance to walk again
THIS pitiful pooch has been given a new lease of life after veterinary experts custom-made the crippled canine a wheeled contraption to get her moving again.
Springer spaniel Bo fractured her spine after running headlong into a rock while out for a walk.
She lost the use of her legs after the accident and could only lie on the ground.
After making a slow recovery following emergency surgery, Bo was about to be put down when experts at the UCD Veterinary Hospital realised she had got feeling back in all four legs.
They painstakingly set to work, giving Bo extensive physiotherapy over several months. One member of staff even had this pulley-wheelchair specially built for her.
Now Bo can run around using her back
‘She knows what she wants and how to get it’
legs, which are working again, to power her forward while her body weight is supported by straps.
She even has tiny US-imported rollerskates attached to one of her front legs which have still to regain their power.
Bo is lovingly cared for by veterinary nurse Kara Airey, who said she is now a very happy dog.
‘We have spent a lot of time together. We weren’t sure how it was going to go, whether she would get better,’ Kara tells tonight’s episode of Animal Emergency on Virgin Media.
‘People worry about getting too attached to patients maybe if they are not going to make it, but we decided that even if she was with us for a short time she would have a good time.
‘We made sure to spend lots of time with her, giving her lots of love. She is quite cheeky, she knows what she wants and knows how to get it. We call her Princess Bo because she is quite demanding.
‘Her owners were aware that she had little to no feelings in her legs.
They decided to go ahead with surgery because she was only three at the time and she potentially had a full life ahead of her.’
Kara revealed it took Bo a full three months to get the feeling back in her legs.
She added: ‘Straight after surgery, ideally between six and eight weeks, is usually the maximum time. The day we had decided that she was going to be euthanised she showed she had feeling in all of her legs, so that was a big day for her.
‘It was a real miracle that she wasn’t finished then, she was ready to keep going.’
It took another two months before Bo was able to use her back legs, which was a huge step. ‘That gave us hope, “Okay, we can keep working with this”,’ Kara recalls.
Owners Penny and Niall are thrilled with her progress and occasionally take Bo home to Waterford for the weekend.
‘You would wonder what to do as the right thing,’ says Penny. ‘Two or three times we thought maybe we should put her down, that it would be the fairest thing for her.
‘But saying it at home and coming up and going through the process is a different matter.
‘The fact she is able to start taking a bit of her own weight and seeing her back legs moving and trying to walk again is just amazing. The dream would be to have her at home and walking again.’
Kara said that Bo still requires 24-hour care. ‘From an ethical standpoint, Bo is really happy with how she is.
‘She is very interactive with us and her owners, she is happy to eat and do her exercises.
‘If she showed any signs that she was not happy any more, then a decision would need to be made.
‘But the way she is going she is a very resilient dog. She has a very good quality of life.’