disabled dog

Special Announcement: Frankie the Walk ‘N Roll Dog Children’s Book Series Now on Kindle

Posted by Barbara Techel

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I’m so excited to share with you this special announcement that my award-winning non-fiction, inspirational children’s books about the life of Frankie, and her volunteer therapy dog work at Libby’s House, a Alzheimer’s facility, are now available on Kindle! During Frankie’s lifetime she inspired thousands of children to be positive and make a difference no matter what their challenges in life.  She continues to inspire generations today and generations to come.

Frankie the Walk ‘N Roll Dog

A true, inspirational story about a dachshund whose life started out just like any other dog walking on all four paws until a spinal injury leaves her paralyzed. Frankie is custom-fitted for a wheelchair and learns to keep on rolling. Her zest for life will have you cheering and she will give you hope that all things are possible. Frankie will leave an everlasting and loving paw print on your heart. A book for all ages to teach overcoming challenges and also compassion for the physically challenged.  See reviews here or order your Kindle copy today here!

Awarded: National Best Book 2008 from USA Book News, Merial Human-Animal Bond Award from Dog Writer’s of American Association, Editor’s Choice award from Allbooks Review, and Indie Excellence Awards Finalist

Frankie the Walk ‘N Roll Therapy Dog Visits Libby’s House

Frankie the Walk ‘N Roll Dog keeps rolling along in her doggie wheelchair. This paralyzed dachshund’s unabashed healing, exuberant spirit, and spunky personality is a blessed gift to everyone she befriends. In this true, inspirational story, Frankie tells how she became a registered therapy dog and shares her visits to Libby’s House, a senior facility where many residents have Alzheimer’s or dementia. Frankie teaches us that patience, listening, and understanding opens our hearts to what matters most—love. See reviews here or order your Kindle copy today here!

Awarded: Indie Excellence Award, Midwest Book Award finalist

Frankie the Walk ‘N Roll Dog Inducted into the Wisconsin Pet Hall of Fame as Companion Dog

***A portion of all proceeds from Barbara’s books, paperback or electronic go to the Frankie Wheelchair Fund which helps dogs with mobility challenges who need a wheelchair.***

Special Needs Pet Feature: Dixie

Posted by Barbara Techel

There are so many caring pet parents out there who take care of special needs pets. To bring more attention to these joyful animals, and extraordinary people, this is a new feature to my blog. If you care for a special needs pet and would like your pet featured, please email me through my website contact.  Send a photo and I will forward the questionnaire for your pet to be featured in an upcoming post.

 

What is your pet’s name?
Dixie (her papers say Cindy’s Dixie Doodle)
Owner – C. Hope Clark, owner FundsforWriters.com
How old is your pet?
15
Where did you get your pet?
My husband purchased her from a breeder as a surprise for me.
What is your pets physical challenge?
Dixie went blind from glaucoma. She started with migraines, and lost most vision in one eye literally overnight. We fought to save her vision in the other eye, working closely with a canine ophthalmologist, but we lost the fight. She’s also 90 percent deaf, which happened within a year of her losing her sight. Cause unknown. All of this happened to her at the age of 12-13 as well as losing her life-long spaniel-mix partner that died at the age of 17. She had a string oftraumatic events happen to her in terms of a few months, especially at so late in life
 
She endured depression for several months. We made her walk around the house, however, and find her way. We had to learn how to keep the furniture in its place and keep things picked up from the floor, like shoes and such, or she’d trip over them. She learned to follow the walls and maneuver around the house in a very short time. She can still go up steps, but of course will not go down. But she adapted well. We have a bed in three rooms so she can find a familiar place to rest. She’ll patrol the house sometimes, just checking out where people are. She might be slow, but she’s steady. She has slowed more this year, and her favorite spot is on the sofa “watching” movies with my husband who has been known to  talk to her about the quality of cable television.
What is your pets favorite thing to do?
She has found her voice back, and we are delighted. She’s learned to bark since she cannot always find her way to the kitchen fast enough to suit her, and cannot find her way fast enough to the door to ask to go out. When it’s dinner time, she barks in the kitchen. When it’s time to get out of bed, she barks. When she is thirsty, she barks. She might not be able to see or hear, but she can sure communicate when it’s time to eat, drink, wake up or go outside. She’s regained some life.
What is your pets favorite thing to eat?
Venison and rice. She has lost all but 5-6 teeth now. Since she has some food allergies, we struggled years ago finding what she could eat. My husband fills the freezer with venison each fall, and he’s created a veterinarian-approved recipe we call rice-a-deer. The minute we start browning the meat, Dixie comes alive, barking until it’s done and a sample put in her bowl. She loves it best when it’s fresh cooked.
What do you love most about your pet?
She’s a cuddler in the bed and still loves to ride in the car. She may not see, but she can stick her nose to a vent and imagine what’s outside. She travels frequently with us. Just this past year she visited family for Christmas, the beach, an apple orchard, a pumpkin patch, along with numerous trips around town.
What has your pet most taught you?
Patience. She’s also taught me to appreciate life and health, because it can change overnight when you least expect it.
 
Anything else you’d like to share?
Animals with disabilities can give love back to owners as much as and even more so than healthy animals. They adapt and turn lemon into lemonades better than most human beings.  We can learn from their positive outlook.
Personally, I just wish she could still see her squirrels and ducks outside. I had a window box built in my study with steps, so she could jump up and watch the wildlife around the lake. I’m a freelance writer, and she used to sit in my lap, sleep at my feet or sun on the window seat – my steady companion as I worked hard. Today she’s happier in her bed or on the sofa, sleeping most of the time as she relaxes in the senior season of her life. But we have memories as I’m sure she does, too. And now, she’s earned the spoiled pampering she receives.
Thank you, Hope for sharing your beloved Dixie with us.  I appreciate your honesty about wishing Dixie could see the squirrels as you know how much she loved seeing them.  I still have pangs of wishing Frankie could walk on her own so I understand having those feelings.  And I also know, like you, I would not trade one moment I have with her.  They give us so much as is evident with your Dixie.

Social Taboos & A Beautiful Essay by Emily Perl Kingsley

Posted by Barbara Techel

If you follow my blog regularly you know I was struggling with some recent comments and stares my Frankie, a dachshund, in a wheelchair received last weekend.  I think because I was among so many dachshund owners at the event I attended, I thought I would receive more support.  But I realized, like any disease or challenge, others don't want to face it if they don't have to.  While IVDD is common in dachshunds with one in five being diagnosed, many do not know about IVDD and many choose to not want to know.  Sort of the theory, "out of sight, out of mind."  But it can happen and it does happen.

Not everyone is going to agree that putting a dog in a wheelchair is the right thing to do.  But it won't stop me from continuing to educate others that IVDD is not a death sentence (as so often happens they are put to sleep when diagnosed with IVDD), but rather an adjustment, and one that is not to hard to make as I have experienced.

Struggling with comments such as "What is wrong with your dog" had me taking it all quite personally.  The word wrong, as I wrote in a previous post struck a chord with me. Nothing is 'wrong' with Frankie- she just has IVDD.  She is a wonderful, happy, little dog.  I couldn't help but think how you wouldn't go up to a parent and ask their child with Down Syndrome, "What is wrong with her/him?"

But a friend who has a child with Down Syndrome who has friends whose children are in wheelchairs told me I'd be quite saddened by the comments and stares their children receive.  I thought in todays world we were past that, but to find we have a long way to go, and those social taboos still do exist.  So though I encounter it with Frankie, I can only imagine the affect it has on children in wheelchairs.  Frankie does not know what others may say, but being her mom, just like parents of kids in wheelchairs, I do, and it hurts.

But I also know the many joys and blessings Frankie has brought to my life.  I wouldn't trade having a dog who can walk normally and give up all the good Frankie has given me.  In my mind and heart she is priceless. 

In sharing my thoughts with my friend whose child has Down Syndrome, she shared with me an essay she shares with families and children.  I thought it was so amazing.  It is in the detours of life where the most wonderful things can happen– we just have to be open to them because when we are, I believe (and know) it takes us to places we never imagined… and they are places in our hearts and minds that can only be experienced by those who opened up to them.  So here is the essay (Thank you, Cheryl!):

Welcome to Holland

An Essay by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this….

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michaelanglo David. The gondola in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands, the stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland".

"HOLLAND?" you say "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine, and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for awhile and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandt's.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.