Roly, it's not time yet! (My Sacred Life, day 16)

We have two dachshunds, pictured here, who are my wife's fur-kids. Roly, the black and tan, and Lilah, the little red girl. Roly was a rescue we adopted more than seven years ago--he is now eight years old--and Lilah came to us from Texas a bit more than five years ago.

Roly seemed to suffer some kind of seizure or back problem yesterday which had us completely freaking out--dachshunds are so prone to back problems that it is the dark, unnamed fear in the back of the minds of everyone who has a dachshund they love.

Julia, to her credit, weeped some and then snapped into action. Once she was comfortable with the needed next step--putting the boy in his crate so he could not worsen any damage which might have already happened--she simply did it.

I found the nearest vet, but we did not call. Instead, she gave him a couple of her supplements and allowed him to rest. We had only the night before completed a quite long road trip, and he had definitely been unruly when we got him out of the car to walk around when we did rest stops, resulting in some twists and bumps to his back.

This morning, he seemed to be a bit better. After more rest (you can see his technique in the photo--is he good at resting, or what??), we took them for another walk and he definitely showed progress.

Now, he is doing a few more hours in his crate, and it looks like tomorrow he will be set free from the hospital ward, so to speak. That's Dr. Julia's decision to make, but Nurse Rick is rooting for him to be wandering about the cottage again very soon.

This day, I know the sacred contribution of dear Roly, and I thank him from my heart for his coming-up-on eight years of service as Julia's soaking-up-tears puppy, and to remind him that he is to be with us for some time to come. It's not time to leave yet!