JJ by Ambross taylor

​JJ is 4years old now. At about a year old JJ was outside playing with the other dogs when he started limping and whining, i took him to 2 vets who told me he was faking and nothing was wrong with him. I went back to the first vet who stated he might have sprained his back, gave him a muscle relaxer and sent him home. After that he was back to his normal self. I never knew of what IVDD was or had any idea this breed had back issues. Fast forward to March of 2019. JJ had been acting like he had a tummy ache, whining, not wanting to jump on the bed. I gave him some pepto and went to work that night. That morning i got home and he was unable to walk or move his back end. I was heartbroken. All i knew was i had to get him to a specialist and fast! I drove 2 hours to Tallahassee Florida to the most wonderful specialist i could have ever asked for. I left him that night and that morning they performed an MRI and confirmed my biggest nightmare. A bulging disc. He stayed that night and was started on some medications and stayed in their ICU. That next day i went to visit, and was fully prepared it to be my last time seeing him before surgery. The vet comes out and states he was sending JJ home! That he could walk and we could medically manage him. He did great for 7 months. We played fetch and he ran and was normal again. No jumping but that was okay. Long story short it ended up happening again. This time he was in ICU for 10 days. Thankfully no surgery again. He never lost reflexes or motor function. Sept 6th i go to let JJ out and he was unable to walk. I quickly checked his reflexes and i could tell this time was not like last. It was different. I loaded him up and we drove 2 hours to his specialist. They wanted to try prednisone this time and watch him over night since he had previously done this twice and was fine with medications. She said he did still have deep pain reflexes. That next morning i got a call stating he had lost deep pain and motor function during the night and his dr was coming in to perform surgery. JJ had a CT myelogram to see which disc was the problem. His surgeon performed a left sided hemilaminectomy at his L1/2 and decompressed his Spinal cord. It was a long 5 days but he did regain deep pain reflexes on both sides. We are in our first week recovery at home. He is still unable to walk. They want to give him 6 months of laser and hydrotherapy to regain his walking.