Sam is a Springer Spaniel puppy who came into us one evening recently as an emergency. He had fallen down a bank whilst out running with his owner in the woods. Although Sam wanted to get up he wasn’t able to, so we were very worried that the fall may have caused some trauma.

Initially we got Sam some pain relief and  then tried to find out where he may have hurt himself. When we examined him his back legs were very rigid and his front legs were very floppy. He also had reduced movement when we tested some reflexes on his legs and he couldn’t support his weight. In himself Sam was otherwise very bright.

This made us concerned that Sam had damaged part of his spine. There are a few ways this can happen. Fractures or dislocation of the spine, traumatic expulsion of spinal discs, as well as concussion and bruising of the spine could have resulted in the signs we could see.

We took some x-rays of Sam’s spine and sent these to a specialist to examine. If Sam had a fracture or dislocation his prognosis was much poorer without surgery to stabilise his spine. Thankfully there were no changes on Sam’s x-rays.

The most important next step was to keep Sam comfortable and give him time to rest. If he improved quickly over the first few days there was a higher chance that he would do well. If he wasn’t showing much improvement then he was much less likely to improve at all.  This meant a difficult three day wait over the weekend. Unfortunately if Sam was no better we would have had to put him to sleep.

Thankfully over the weekend Sam started to come on in leaps and bounds – literally! Within a few days he was trying to do much more than he was allowed to do. As we thought his spinal lesion was located in his neck we had to be very careful that he rested and didn’t put any pressure in this area. To do this he got a harness and was on strict cage rest.

By Monday morning Sam was able to hold himself upright with some slight support, although he was still falling over and ‘knuckling’ on his front legs. We were happy to send him home to continue his strict crate rest and pain relief.

So far Sam is continuing take positive steps. We do not yet know if he will every 100% recover but is enjoying life and improving every day. We are really pleased with his progress so far!