Stars align for puppy born with broken legs
While recovering from surgery, Angel had to maneuver with an e-collar and four metal pins in each front leg.
[dropcap]J[/dropcap]anet and Bob Wilson had done it a dozen times. After two months of planning, their silver Labrador, Gracie, finally began whelping on October 23, 2010. From 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., out they popped – five squirming silver and charcoal boys. When all was done, the Wilsons took the exhausted mother’s temperature, cleaned her up, fed her some cottage cheese and chicken broth, and showered her with love. Then, leaving Gracie to arrange her brood beside her, they headed upstairs to bed.
“All signs were showing us that the litter was finished,” says Janet, a physical education teacher and co-owner of Blue Diamond Breeding in Weare, New Hampshire. “Gracie was done. We had five beautiful puppies, and we figured that was it.”
Angel “swims” across the floor before her surgery.
But when the sun stretched its sleepy fingers over Gracie’s nest the next morning, it brought an extra surprise. Sometime during the night, Gracie had given birth to a sixth pup – a silver girl the Wilsons quickly dubbed Angel.
At first, the whole litter looked healthy. But two weeks in, when her brothers began standing up and wobbling around, Angel seemed unable to put weight on her front legs. Instead, she “swam” across the floor. And according to Janet, “she screamed when she was doing it.”
When her local veterinarian concluded that both of the pup’s forearms were broken, signaling osteogenesis imperfecta, Janet’s colleagues advised her to save her wallet and let the pup go. “The recommendation was to put the puppy down, she’s not going to be able to live like this,” recalls Janet, distress still lingering in her voice. “They all said this is one of those enormous downfalls of being in this business, and you really should just cut your losses.”
In six years of business, this was a first for the Wilsons. It was also not an option. How could they put down a dog because it wasn’t born perfect? What’s more, how could they put down a dog with whom they’d already fallen in love?
“She had such spunk,” says Janet, recalling how Angel would swim over to the edge of her pen – despite excruciating pain – so she could be near her humans. “She was so alert and responsive to us. She wanted to be played with. She wanted to be held.”
By Thanksgiving, when relatives converged on the Wilson home and found five-week-old Angel paddling around, the decision was made. No one was giving up. They all pledged to help. Janet’s sister, Elaine Weber, even offered to be Angel’s around-the-clock nurse when Janet returned to work. “She had such a wonderful temperament and personality,” recalls Elaine, a nurse practitioner who happened, fortuitously, to be between jobs. “She looked like a little angel the way her arms went out.”
A week after meeting in Home Depot, Collette (right) visited Angel with her daughter-in-law Alice (left) and daughter MaryBeth.
The night before surgery, Angel spends some quality time with mom, Gracie.
Bolstered by this support, Janet reached out to Dr. Nick Trout, staff surgeon at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston, whose book she was reading at the time. He quickly discounted the osteogenic imperfecta diagnosis, which isn’t usually bilateral and affects children more than dogs. “The interesting thing about these bones is they weren’t attempting to heal. It was almost like her body was accepting these as just another joint,” says Dr. Trout, who rarely sees cases of congenital fractures.
He classified Angel’s condition as bilateral humoral nonunion fractures, caused by something developmental that occurred in utero or by mishap during birth. One possibility is that Gracie rolled over as the pup was coming out. Another, which Janet deems more likely, is that Angel’s sac snapped open prematurely and she had to crawl out of the birth canal – breaking her front legs in the process.
In order to get Angel on the mend, Dr. Trout recommended invasive surgery that would use multiple steel pins to support the bones. It would not be overly risky, but making sure the bones healed before problems arose during recovery would be, in his words, “a race against time.”
“Puppies don’t usually like to be quiet and sedentary orthopedic patients,” he explained with amusement. But if Angel could get through the recovery and stay well through the initial growing phase, she would be in the clear. He then gave Angel a small preview of what her future might hold: Turning a floor mat upside down, he placed the puppy atop the rubber backing and watched her try – yet again – to walk. This time, the resistance of the rubber enabled her to push herself up.
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the way home, Janet stopped at the first Home Depot she saw to pick up some more rubber-backed rugs. Here, she ran into Collette Jamrog, a woman struggling with having to put down her beloved Molly, a 13-year-old black Lab. She and her 11-year-old daughter, MaryBeth, were in desperate need of an angel.
“It was kind of meant to be,” Collette says about the moment she met Janet and the brave little puppy resting in a pack against her chest. “As soon as I held her I almost started bawling because I could remember my dog when she was a puppy.”
“She said, ‘Oh my God, is this yours?’” Janet recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, it could be yours.’ And she breaks out crying in the middle of Home Depot.” Sensing that fate had intervened, Janet decided to let Collette become Angel’s new mom, at no cost, once the puppy was healthy.
Over the next two weeks, the Wilsons reached out to friends, colleagues, and local businesses to help cover the $5,000 cost of the operation. They put collection cans in stores, set up a PayPal link at BlueDiamondBreeding.com, and opened a tax-deductible benevolent account in Angel’s name. When the date arrived, they’d collected $1,500 from good Samaritans. They set up a payment plan for the rest and crossed their fingers.
MaryBeth cuddles with her healthy Sadie Angel in December 2012. Seven months old and healthy, Angel takes in some sun on the deck of her forever home.
On January 12, 2011, Angel came out of the operating room with an Elizabethan collar, four steel pins protruding from her bones, and solid acrylic connecting the steel – making them look like wings. She was a vision of both hope and heartbreak.
Elaine, who nursed Angel for the next month as promised, described the entire ordeal as “beautiful serendipity.” From Dr. Trout’s involvement, to Collette’s chance meeting, to her own ability to commit the time – right down to the name of the hospital. “Most breeders would have put that dog down,” she says. “She was meant to be fixed and she was meant to live through it and she was meant to be given to Collette.”
“I felt very, very blessed that so many people rallied around this pup,” says Janet. “I felt that Collette needed that dog at that time. I really think everything happens for a reason. She touched a lot of lives.”
Almost two years after her surgery, Collette says Angel (now Sadie Angel) is a “typical dog.” Fully healed and free any of side effects, she is a bundle of energy who loves running around in the yard, fetching balls with MaryBeth, and playing with her favorite toys – empty soda bottles.
Janet, who lives close enough to visit every so often, agrees: “Now, Angel does not walk anywhere. She bounds everywhere. It’s almost like she knows legs are not to be taken for granted.”
For more photos, videos, and information on donating, visit BlueDiamondBreeding.com and click on “Angel Trust.” As of November 2012, Blue Diamond still owed over $2,300 for Angel’s operation. Laura Kenyon is a freelance writer and blogger who recently finished her first novel. Follow her at Twitter.com/Laura_Kenyon or read about her own little angel at laura-shadow.blogspot.com. Also, Dr. Nick Trout is the author of The Patron Saint of Lost Dogs, and the upcoming The Many Talents of Lost Dog 42.
