This is not something that comes easily or is comfortable to share but we’ve reached a point where Saint-Atlas's journey can no longer be a private one.

Over the past year and a half, Saint has been struggling with unexplained health issues. After countless vet visits, scans, and consultations, we finally have an official diagnosis—but it’s one we never expected.

The last year and a half has been a long process of trying to figure out what’s going on, more so in the last 7 months. I know your probably wondering how could this be going on for so long? Why did it take so long to figure out what the problem is? The truth is no one could figure it out.

Saint is a very hyper, excited, bubbly, people person dog. At 5 years old he still very much has that sporadic puppy energy. People still think he's an actual puppy and are shocked when they find out his age.

Even now with his decreased mobility and energy he's still such a happy dog. It's hard to explain or understand if you don't know him but he's just a fur ball filled with love and excitement. Even through pain, he’s remained joyful, which—ironically—made diagnosing him so difficult. When a vet looks at him, they always say he's very healthy, especially for an English bulldog. He's not presenting how a dog would or should for these types of injuries, and level of chronic pain. He's still moving around and excitable etc. But what they failed to understand is this 'level of excitability' or 'minor signs and symptoms' is actually a major sign for him.

If you know Saint, you know he's absolutely bat shit crazy, hyper, constant zoomies, jumping and running around like a professional athlete. So, what they say is normal levels of behaviour, which may be normal for a regular dog, it is not Saints normal. No matter what was said, as a proud dog mom, I trusted my intuition knowing something more was going on then just unexplainable lameness or sprained muscles. I pushed and advocated, given the diagnosis I'm so proud that I did.

The Story:

It's all started in December of 2023, left hind leg injury. Although it was suspected to be a ligament tear it was never officially diagnosed. Since then, there's been occasional flare ups, limping, crying in pain, up to even not being able to put any weight on the leg.

Fast forward to late spring early summer of 2024, there was a shift. The flare ups were happening more often and all of a sudden, he developed a slight limp in the right hind leg. This was suspected to be as a result of over compensating due to the left hind leg’s issues. By late summer it was clear the right hind leg limping was not due to compensation. As Saint is a very active dog it was brushed aside as another possible ligament injury.

By fall of 2024 Saint was regularly limping in both hind legs, and he had increased occurrences of an overall decrease in mobility and flare ups with worsening symptoms compared to before.

It was clear some more investigation needed to be done. The vet’s recommended to start off with X-rays. Saint was scheduled for neuter surgery in early January. Which made it a good time to run some X-rays as he would already be under anesthesia for his surgery, rather then having to put him under twice in close proximity.

As time went by, Saint slowly got worse and symptoms continue to increase and develop. His flare ups became more often and more sever as more symptoms arose, such as dragging the leg when walking, refusing to walk, extreme limping, inability to walk or put weight on leg, whining, lethargic, unwillingness to move or stand etc.

January-May 2025 consisted of multiple vet appointments, emergency visits, consults and assessments with surgeons, orthopedic specialists and neurology specialists. At this point it seemed like we were at some sort of veterinary visit a week. Having not only our regular vet office, emergency vets and specialists’ offices recognize the make and model of our vehicle, and coming to outside to get us as soon as we parked, by passing check in, being on a first name basis with the staff and doctors, although great in some aspects, it just goes to show how often we were there and its not a comforting feeling.

By this time, Saint was limping on three legs, front left, back left hind and back right hind. Along with decreased mobility, fatigue and lameness, inability to walk longer then 10 minutes. Unwillingness to walk or play. Low energy, low mood, very attached and whiney. There were days it was like he’d become completely different dog. He'd become a shell of himself.

During one of the assessments with an orthopedic surgeon, it was suggested that Saints issues may not be an outcome from the legs but possibly the spine.

We paused in investigating his legs and switched gears looking into his spine. Then, everything changed. The orthopedic surgeon was thankfully on the mark.

After a neurology consult and assessment, which didn't go well but that's another story that I'll spare the details on, multiple phone calls later between Surgery, Ortho and Neurology. It was clear that whatever was going on was an interdisciplinary situation and Saint’s case was to be taken on by all three disciplines working together to diagnose and treat. The heads of each department were having meetings to figure out a game plan. This was a major red flag, as it's generally not normal practice for departments to be working collectively as a team but rather diagnosing and treating separately and refer to each other.

This takes us to May 15th 2025, after exhausting all the physical assessment options Saint was booked in for a full day of diagnostic tests and scans which included multiple CT and MRI scans, a spinal tap, blood work etc. It was overwhelming, and the cost of all this…unimaginable. At the end of the day a quick discussion was had of the suspected diagnosis. Though we had to wait until all the doctors working on his case had the chance to go over the scans, meet together and discuss official diagnosis and treatment.

May 21st 2025, The Official Diagnosis: Saint has been diagnosed with Degenerative Lumbosacral Stenosis (DLSS) along with two partially torn ACLs in both back legs.

DLSS is a degenerative disease that Saint will have for the rest of his life. It's a disease that targets the spine causing a slow progression of degeneration of the spinal column.

Unfortunately for Saint, there is a bit more going on with his spine then just the DLSS. His scans show multiple other issues in his spine which include, complete demyelination of the spinal cord, cysts, bone spurs, damaged ligaments, nerve damage and most seriously, major compression of the spinal cord itself.

During this whole process of trying to figure out what the problem is. All the treatment options recommended were done, decreased activity, bed rest, pain meds, sedatives. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to calm him or help his symptoms as they continue to increase. So, with this official diagnosis comes the only treatment option: surgery and then rehab.

Three major surgeries to be exact, 1 for his spine and one each for the back hind legs.

His spinal surgery comes with a lot of risks and a long recovery. Two of his vertebrates need to be permanently removed along with some of his supporting lumbar ligaments. The cyst and spurs also need to be removed and because of the location it may be difficult to do so without causing permanent damage. His nerves also need to be moved around back into place, again high risk of damage.

Currently the plan and major focus is his spine, given his prognosis and gradual increase in symptoms, it needs to be done sooner rather than later. Especially given that if his symptoms drastically increase, we are looking at permanent irreversible damage. After all the spinal stuff is healed and he's healthy enough, we will be undergoing the ACLs repair surgery, first the back left hind leg as it has a bigger tear and then 8-16 weeks after the right back hind leg.

As you can image all of this has been a big financial strain. All the appointments, consults and scans even with insurance has already been a huge burden. I'm not going to go into specifics but I'm already struggling and with 3 major surgeries and rehab in the horizon, the cost is more then I can manage.

Any little bit helps, even if you can spare $5 that's amazing. If all you can do is share and spread the word that helps too! We appreciate all the love and support through this. Thank you.

Nikhita & Saint-Atlas

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