Help Daphne walk again.

Hi, our names are Josh and Harry, and we're fundraising to help our dear little Daphne the Miniature Dachshund walk again, covering the costs of her recent surgery and ongoing rehabilitation treatment. We have three babies: our three year-old son, Digby, and our two beautiful pooches, Daphne and Peaches.

Daphne is just 4 years old and on Sunday May 5th, one of the inter-vertebral discs in her back literally exploded. This is called an inter-vertebral disc "extrusion".

If you imagine the discs being like little jam donuts in-between all the bones (vertebrae) in her back, then all of the jam in one of the donuts suddenly bursting out at high velocity into the spinal cord, that'll give you a good idea of her injury. Disc extrusion injuries are graded 1 to 5. The trauma caused by the disc extrusion (bleeding, bruising, inflammation) instantly paralysed Daphne's hind quarters and put her in tremendous pain...

We ferried her between our local vet, an emergency vet with a Sunday service where she received pain relief, and then finally to a specialist centre qualified to properly diagnose her injuries and offer treatment - Dick White Referrals in Newmarket. It was here that we learned that Daphne had lost all function - movement, proprioception (self-awareness of movement and location), and deep-pain sensation in her back legs and tail. This meant that Daphne's extrusion was classed as grade 5 - the worst possible. Despite powerful pain relief, it was clear that she was still in horrendous discomfort and that conservative management would not be an option, leaving only two possibilities: either she was to be put to sleep, or have surgery.

Surgery on dogs with a grade 3 or 4 IVD extrusion has a very high success rate - some 90+%... but for grade 5 the success rate plummets to 50 or 60%, along with longer recoveries that can take as much as 18 months... Our vet told us "the quicker she had the surgery, the better her chances of a full recovery".

We wondered what the right thing to do would be. We didn't want her to suffer. What if the surgery was unsuccessful? Ultimately, we decided to go ahead with the surgery knowing that even if she was never to walk again, we would be at peace caring for her till the end of her days, knowing we had given her every chance possible. If we had said goodbye to her then, we would always be left wondering...

A few days later Daphne was home. She was no longer in any pain, but naturally still tender and in need of strict crate-rest. Now we are 11 days post-op, and every day she has shown us a tiny glimpse of progress. We have to help her use the toilet, but when we praise her when she goes, she wags her tail with excitement! She cannot balance, but when we do her daily physio with her we can sense the muscular contractions in her legs becoming stronger over time. It's going to be a long road, but we are hopeful she'll walk again.

In the meantime, we are raising funds to contribute to the cost of her surgery and ongoing care - physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and so on. Her vet bill came to £8,851 in total which included an MRI, the surgery, pain killers, anti-inflammatory pills and 3 nights at the vets.

Honestly, we have no expectation that anyone should donate to Daphne's cause. As it goes, these are tough times, and she is our responsibility. That said, we know that people are kind, and that there are certainly people out there who will understand our decision to do whatever it takes to take care of her - she's our family. Our hearts overflow with love for Daphne, and we would make the same decision a thousand times to give her the chance she deserves. If you can help and would like to, we are eternally grateful. Thank you.

Josh, Harry, and family x