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Gus's new wheels

Gus was born with a inherited spinal condition/disease called hemivertebrae. what this is is that some of his spinal vertebrae havent formed correctly and are misshapen in his spine causing him to lose the use of his back legs.
we first noticed that something was wrong when he was roughly 5 months old, he started with a limp that slowly progressed into him falling over when he would walk. pretty much overnight this changed into him not being able to alk on his back legs at all and when he tried he just fell over. seeing him like this was beyond heartbreaking, we didnt know what was up with our puppy.
we took him to the vets who at first thought he had hurt himself, they said it hopefully would get better within a few weeks but this wasnt the case. so we took him back to the vets and they reeled off anumber of problems that he could have and suggested we have some xrays done on him to find out the problem as it was looking like it could be hip displasia but when the xrays came back it turned out it was hemivertebrae disease. the vets kept pushing surgery on us, this would mean it would be over £5000 with no guarantee it would walk or he would die during. we didnt feel like this was an option for us as we couldnt afford it and we didnt want to put him under anaesthesia at such a small age. i said that we could see he wasnt suffering as he still could toilet fine and ate like an absolute pig! they werent happy that we didnt want to give them any more money (at this point we had spent over £500 of which we didnt really have and he wasnt insured) and i said i wanted to try him with a wheelchair. this didnt go down very well with them and told us "he wont live past a couple of months if you go down this route- you're best off putting him to sleep" at which i cried, got my puppy and left the vets. 
that night i researched his condition and saw numerous people say how well their dog adapted to wheels with this condition so i went ahead and ordered some. at the time we got the "mini" walkin' wheels as he was tiny and also had the whole "he wont be around" lingering in the back of my head. when we got them he adapted pretty quick, he must have realised he could get out and go on walks again, he could run in them and keep up with the other dogs. its safe to say hes had a new lease of life with them!
fast forward to now. hes turning 1 0n the 14/03/16- this is a birthday we got told he would never see. obviously hes grown a lot since  being diagnosed, his wheels just arent the right size for him anymore, the wheels arent the right height (weve got them on the highest setting) and his harness is directly over where his bad vertebrae are, ive tried moving it so its not over them but its not worked and i dont want him to hurt himself so we need the bigger set up so he has more movement and more room to grow. 
ive set the goal for £350.00 which is for the next set up of wheels. there are cheaper ones around but theyre not of good quality and going cheap could cause him more harm than good. 
thank you! 
Sasha and Gus
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Organizer

Sasha Alexander
Organizer

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