Jack Russell Terrier's Prolapsed Disc - non surgical option

by Ben Hickleton
(Victoria, Australia)

On the 1st of May 2011 I arrived home from work to find my beloved Jack Russell Terrier of 6 years looking rather listless.

At first I thought it might just be a short lasting illness that is common in dogs and he’ll recover in a couple of days. About an hour after arriving home I was petting him and as I ran my hand down his back he yelped as if he was in extreme pain.

This led me to believe this was something much more than a minor illness. After he yelped I noticed that he began walking with a slight limp and his tail between his legs; signifying pain. I alerted my mum who called a vet and booked an appointment for the following day.

We were notified that he had suffered from a prolapsed disc. Put simply, part of the middle disc in his spine (a gel-like substance) had bulged through the wall of his spine and was impeding the nerve. We were told that the average amount of time until a recovery begins is 6 weeks, if he does recover, that is. We were also given the option to undergo surgery. The cost of the procedure was a hefty $6,000 so we instantly decided to wait out the 6 weeks and pray that he would recover.

By that night, he had gotten worse. He was now falling over every 5-or-so steps and regularly yelping in pain. The following day we were leaving on a holiday 700 kilometres away and we all decided that the only choice we had was to take him with us. We phoned the resort and confirmed that small dogs were allowed, which they were. We left at 5am and it was clear that he was still getting worse. He was constantly swaying from side-to-side and the falling over was much more frequent.

The trip to our destination was 7 hours long. Our first stop was after approximately 1 hour of driving. We put him on the leash and let him roam the side of the freeway. His condition hadn’t changed since we left so we came to the conclusion that we may have seen the worst of it. Our second stop was after about 2:30 hours. We let him out once again to have a quick walk around and we were shocked when we noticed he was now struggling to even take a step (something that he could comfortably do before we left). No change was noticed in the rest of the breaks, until we reached the resort.

We arrived at the resort to find that our room had been upgraded to an upstairs room. We initially had a downstairs room with a small courtyard so he could have a bit of room to walk around, so we were fairly unhappy with the upgrade. The resort allowed him to walk around inside the apartment which was a bit of a bonus because we couldn’t make him sleep outside on the balcony. We placed him down when we got inside and were completely dumbfounded when we discovered that his back legs had completely lost movement. He was dragging them around the room in a scene that was hard to watch for all of us.

After unpacking, we needed to go to the shop to buy some food for the week. We made a small area for him using the apartment’s couches and left for the supermarket. We shopped for about an hour and when we arrived back at the apartment, we found him shaking and crying. I felt that it wasn’t the best idea to leave him in a place he had never seen before without anyone he knows. At this point, we rang our local vet and were told that he had reached the ‘critical stage’ which generally requires surgery within a 24-hour window. The shaking and crying didn’t stop after the next 15 minutes so we took him in to the local vet. They were very helpful and advised us that he had in fact not yet reached the ‘critical stage.’ We were told that the reason he had gotten worse was the fact that we were letting him walk around at his own will. We were told by the vet that he required 6 weeks of complete cage rest with toilet breaks every now and then. We were given a cage for free as long as it was returned before we left.

At this point, we realised how hard the weeks ahead of looking after him were going to be. We put him in the cage which, as you would expect, he didn’t enjoy, but he got used to it after a couple of hours.

The week of holidaying was hard. We had to balance leisure activities with looking after him which meant at times, he was left in the apartment for hours at a time. We always arrived home to find him sitting in a pool of faeces and urine. Regular baths were essential – at least 2-3 a day – to prevent him from getting a urine infection on the skin on his belly. We went to a local $2 store and found some disposable puppy pads, which were extremely helpful. They removed the need to be washing his cushion every day and neutralised the smell. We kept up the regular baths and made sure he stayed in the cage as long as possible.

Our holiday was over after a week and we returned the cage and headed back home. No change was noticed in his condition, nor was it expected.

We arrived home and created a makeshift cage out of an old raised dog bed frame. It worked well enough until we were given a cage to borrow from our local ranger. Throughout the next month, we continued to nurture him as much as we could. The regular baths continued and no change was observed.

It was exactly 6 weeks into the ordeal, when he turned the corner and began to improve.

They were small, but significant steps. It all started when I arrived home from school one night. I walked inside and as usual, walked up to him and petted him on the head. To my bewilderment, his tail wagged for the first time in 6 weeks. It was an exciting feeling for the whole family to know that he was on the way to getting better. His tail wagging was followed shortly by him standing briefly, which reassured us that things were looking good for him. After another week or so, his standing had improved. Now, when you walk up to him he would stand up and wag his tail, which was a rewarding sight. After another week or so, he reached his biggest milestone of all – he took his first few steps.

More weeks passed with him constantly improving. He regained control of his bowels and was able to control his urination. He was eventually able to walk with only a very slight limp.

Now we get to today, The 24th of August 2011. He is sitting with me as I write this, chewing on his chew toy like nothing ever happened to him. He’s still not 100% better and we don’t think he will ever walk perfectly again (although it’s hard to notice anything wrong when he walks), but we are stoked that he’s still with us and is almost back to normal. We would never have gotten through the experience if we didn’t maintain resilience and dedication to continue to monitor and nurture him back to his almost-normal state. Constant, complete caged rest was crucial if he was to improve.

The total amount paid during the 2-3 months for vet visits and antibiotics etc. totalled only $200, compared to the $6000 that we were required to pay if we decided to undergo surgery (which only had about a 60% - 80% success rate).

I wrote this because of the issues we had of finding a story online with a successful outcome after choosing the non-surgical option.