We brought him home and placed him on a foam mat in the middle of our family room. This is where we would spend the next six weeks taking care of him. You could see Murphy was happy to be home. The hard part was just beginning. Palpating an injured dog is a lot harder than it looks especially when the dog won't cooperate. Care must be taken so that his bladder muscles don't get stretched. If they do, he will be incontinent for the rest of his life. After struggling with him for an hour and not able to get one drop out of him, we took him to our vet. The doctor on call showed us how to palpate him again. Eight hours later, when it was time again, we still couldn't do it. So we had to take him to the local Emergency Animal Hospital to have it done. The vet there showed us how to palpate him again. Believe me when I tell you, this is NOT easy. The next morning, we still could not palpate Murphy. We took him to our vet, where Dr. Goldacker showed us how to catheterize Murphy. This was easier to do, but you must be very careful and observe sterile procedures otherwise you can cause an infection in the urinary tract. So after two days, with little or no sleep, we finally could take care of Murphy ourselves.
We spent the next two weeks (the remainder of our vacation) taking care of Murphy. He was not allowed to move around. He had to be kept still. (Try telling that to a beagle.) Murphy has never liked crates and after his hospital experience, we were not putting him back in one. Once our scheduled "vacation time" was over we had to make a schedule that allowed someone to be with him all day. Frani's mom volunteered to help during the day, while Frani and I juggled our remaining vacation time to fill in the gaps. Two weeks went by and the staples were taken out. We didn't even notice that our Wedding Anniversary had gone by until two days after it had past. After six weeks, we could leave him alone in the house confined to the family room. By this time, Murphy wanted some freedom.  So, after six week of confinement, Murphy would have an exam back at the U of P Vet Hospital. It was time for the staple to come out. His incision had healed nicely without any infection. He had also done something we had not expected. He was trying to stand. We were told that swimming therapy would help greatly. But the nearest facility, Showplace Farms, was 75 miles away near Englishtown, NJ. We also decided to explore alternative methods of treatment, such as acupuncture and herbal therapy.Showplace is actually a horse training facility that has opened their Aqua Therapy to include dogs. We set up an appointment with Allison at Showplace Farms. This was very new to us since we had never had Murphy swimming before his accident. Lalo, Murphy's new trainer, put Murphy in a life vest and harness. Then, after some reluctance from Murphy, got him down the ramp and into the water. Much to our surprise, he could swim. Even better, both his back legs were kicking. After a month of 2 visits per week, Murphy was out of the life vest and up to 30 minutes of swimming a session. He was visibly stronger (his hind legs and rump had atrophied after the surgery). He would have to regain muscle mass, later would come the control.  We also began acupuncture treatments and herbal therapy at the Animal Healing Center in Yardley, PA. It is run by Dr. Kalsa and her protege Dr. Barr. They specialize in animal accupunture, chiropracty, and herbal therapy. Murphy went there once a week for accupunture treatments along with herbal therapies at home. This in conjunction with the swimming had Murphy standing on his own in a month. After about three months, we decided to stop the accupunture treatments to see how Murphy would do without them. Murphy showed even more improvement. He hasn't gone back since. After a year, Murphy stopped swimming twice a week, but still gets walked as often as possible. |