Gus

We got Gus and he was a normal healthy happy puppy and one day he started staggering around like as you would see drunk people. Initially we thought he had hurt himself being a mischievous puppy but it got worse. At first the vets didn’t know what was up until one day he stopped walking altogether. We took him back, had X-rays and he was diagnosed with hemivertebrae.

To cut a long story short we saw 5 vets and each one told us to put him down. I asked each one if he was suffering (as hemivertebrae can be painful; they can also lose their bowel movements and pee themselves as their nerves don’t register with their head in their back end) each one said no and i had to give him a chance.

I got him the small walkin wheels and he took to them like a duck to water. At this point he was just over 5 months old. It’s so heartbreaking to see a little puppy not being able to walk through an inherited condition.

He even came to our wedding and decided to run muddy wheels all over my wedding dress- something I’ll cherish forever. Up to January 2017 he was in a chair. One day he was sat next to me and my husband on the sofa, jumped off and began to walk and looked at us as if to say ‘what are you looking at’ and since that day he’s just been getting stronger.

His tail is curled up again, his muscles are back and he’s continuing to thrive. Me and my husband made the heartbreaking choice to go let him live with my dad in the countryside as we live in a city and he’s so happy now