MILO
We were contacted about Milo in the summer of 2014, as his owners were going on holiday and explained that he had been purchased as a stud dog, aged a year old. He was then 17 months old had been a wonderful father to his litter of puppies. The puppies all had new homes to go to and were being collected the following day. Milo had been advertised for sale, they explained that they had been honest and the advert had stated that he had a slight deformity to one of his front legs and wasn’t good with young children. As they had no one interested in buying Milo, he was offered to the rescue on the condition that he would go to a good home and be collected straight away.
On arrival at his foster home, he settled in well with his foster brother and sister with just a few grumbles, which is only to be expected due to the upheaval he’d experienced. One of the rescues experienced helpers, fell in love with a photo of Milo and offered him a forever home, so he went off to live with his new family. Sadly his behaviour had deteriorated and he was very grumpy indeed, he was snapping at his new family and his behaviour raised some serious concerns. After a few days, it was decided that they should return him, which was the responsible and safest thing to do. Something about the new environment just didn’t suit Milo.
Milo returned and was back to his normal self, a playful, happy go lucky little chap. We decided to learn from this experience and try to rehome him again, but this time in a quieter home, with just one other dog to play with. The rescue had an applicant waiting for a young dog, who’d been home checked and sounded ideal. We explained what had happened the previous time we tried to rehome Milo and we all agreed that we should give it a try and see what he would be like in her home. He seemed very happy the first few hours, but after we had left, and less than 24 hours after his arrival, he realised this was more than just a visit. His demeanour and behaviour changed again, he become very growly and frightened his new mum with his confrontational behaviour. He obviously decided he was the “boss” and didn’t want to be in his lovely new home. So he was returned again…
In October 2014, we noticed that Milo’s leg was starting to cause concern, he would limp after longish walks and his paw was starting to turn under. We again discussed this with his vet and it was decided to cut down on long walks and give him Seraquin plus cod liver oil daily and pain relief. The rescue and foster family agreed that because of Milo’s unpredictable temperament and leg disability that he would remain as a long term foster dog.
During January 2015, his leg appeared to be giving him more pain with him limping most days, even though he was having only small lead walks and encouraged to take it easy. We decided to get a second opinion from one of the rescues most trusted vets. An X-ray was taken, which shows that Milo had a severe case of Angular Limb Deformity (ALD) and was referred to Chiltern Referrals where Milo had his first operation in March 2015 which aimed to realign Milo’s leg using a made to measure metal plate. His aftercare was 6 weeks crate rest then 6 weeks of taking it slowly with 10 mins walk a day increasing to 20mins. No playing, chasing or jumping, but unfortunately at the end of this period Milo was still limping and having difficulty getting around. Additional x-ray were carried out and a course of Laser treatment (6 sessions) to enhance his healing was undertaken followed by steroid injections administered under sedation. Despite all of this, poor Milo was still suffering, although the pain appeared to be coming from further up his leg, so Milo went under the knife again for a second op, which included a bone graft to his shoulder.
During the rest and recovery period, Milo was still in a lot of pain so repeat x-rays were ordered which revealed that Milo had somehow managed to snap the metal plate that had been inserted into his leg originally. The vet kindly offered to replace the metal plate at cost and charged the rescue for medication and materials only (the staff gave their time free of charge for Milo’s operation). Poor Milo had to go through yet another lengthy and very carefully managed recovery process followed by a course of hydrotherapy.
Milo still has days when his leg is very painful and his foster mum manages this with pain relief, but he is happy most of the time and will probably always have a weakness with his dodgy leg, but he doesn’t let this bother him. He is such a lucky boy to have landed on his paws with his lovely foster family, but we dread to think what would have become of him if SSTR hadn’t taken him on. You can sponsor Milo by clicking the link below
Next ……Billy’s Story