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Today marks 2 years since Nora arrived at our door for what we believed was an emergency foster situation. She had just arrived from Iran via Canada a few days earlier – and the foster the rescue had lined up for her here in NY had decided she was too much to handle within just a few hours. We stepped up to foster while she was going through scheduled treatments and amputation at Animal Medical Center.

It didn’t take us long to realize this was going to be a major foster failure on our part. We fell head over heels in love with this brave pup and decided she had to become a permanent member of our family.

We have been through a lot over these past 2 years – a lot of work both medically and behavioral as those of you who have followed our blog already know. We are so proud of Nora who has come SO far. She’s a completely different dog than the shy anxious pup who arrived back in June of 2015.

Happy gotcha day/adoptiversary/ 4th birthday Nora. We love you to the moon and back.

Attached are 2 photos taken back when she was still in Iran AND some more recent photos. 

We’ve been busy since our last update. Nora is going on for laser treatments twice a week and acupuncture once a week – and it’s really helping her.

Last week her acupuncture session was a sedated session, so the acupuncturist could do deep triggerpoints. Her neck is tight as a violin string.

In other happy news – Nora is featured in an article about AMC to the rescue in the new issue of Dogster Magazine. We fear she may soon request an agent 😉

Today we started a new round of acupuncture – this time also with laser treatments – for Nora’s neck. Acupuncture worked wonders for her phantom limb pain, so we want to see if acupuncture can help her reduce the amount of pain meds she needs.

The laser session was quite the experience! We all had to wear goggles – that included ‘doggles’ for Nora! She was off the charts adorable in them!!!

 

Attaching the link to a short video below the photo

1. First outdoor wheelchair session.

   Posted by Vibeke Alstad Jagne on Saturday, April 1, 2017

   Sorry we haven’t checked in for so long…..

Nora is doing well. Her neck injury has presented some problems and minor setbacks, but Nora has powered through it all. Since her ruptured disc won’t heal, and she’s likely to need painkillers for the rest of her life – we decided to start looking at options to take stress of her neck. In addition to a new round of acupuncture, this time also with laser treatments starting next week – we decided to get Nora some wheels. Since she is so mobile on 3, we never considered it before – but it would take a lot of stress off her neck if she could accept using it as a means to get to and from the park. Once in the park, she can come out of it and run around like she loves to do. Running is a lot easier on her neck than walking. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the headbob tripawds develop to compensate for a missing forelimb. We’re working with the rehab department at AMC to properly fit the cart and get her comfortable with using it.

She is now officially ‘ a bitch on wheels’, as we affectionately call her. She may have to get a side cart for her kitty brothers 😉

Below is a link of one of Nora’s first training sessions with the new wheels.

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Let’s start with the good news – Nora went in for her neurology follow up at AMC last Saturday. The month of crate/bed rest worked, and she has healed really well. She was cleared to start slowly building up to normal activities over the next month. She was REALLY happy to finally get to go for a walk, however short.

The new challenge though…..Over this last month of rest, pain meds and sedatives Nora has had a few incidents where she lost control of her bladder while asleep. We have taken turns sleeping with her on the couch (since she was restricted to our small living room), and on several occasions we would wake up in a pool of pee with Nora. Both the vets and we assumed this was just due to her being too sedated in her sleep.

Yesterday, after having been taken off all sedatives since Saturday – we found she had peed her bed again. She wasn’t even really deeply asleep, just snoozing and resting. Something was not right.

We took her in to our regular vet today to rule out a UTI, bladder stones or crystals. She didn’t show the classic signs of a UTI – no painful urination or frequent urination, but better safe than sorry. The ultrasound of her bladder didn’t show any stones or crystals, and we should have the results of the urinalysis tomorrow (urine culture takes a few more days). If this is not a UTI, we might be dealing with incontinence. Thankfully, there are meds to help Nora regain bladder control if that’s what is going on.

No matter what this is, we will get through it. Nora is still a happy girl, in spite of everything.