Luna’s Story:
The Happy Ending Depends on You
The beautiful Black Lab didn’t utter a sound as the reserve police officer and Florence Area Humane Society employees Anne Cook and Max Eckroth gently carried her into the shelter on a makeshift stretcher fashioned from a blanket and a couple of poles.
"She can't get up, I think she probably has a broken back," the officer had said when he phoned the shelter to say he’d found the dog huddled in the bushes near the old high school football field. Max, Anne and staff member Laura Livingston prepared a bed on the floor in the med room and gave our guest a bowl of water. She lay quietly and gazed at our concerned faces with not even a whimper.
It was a mid-September Sunday morning, usually a quiet time at the shelter but on this Sunday morning the entire Board of Directors was present. We had intended to have a special meeting which was now postponed while we all focused on a more important issue. The dog needed medical attention and mostly likely a delicate surgical procedure.
Our Senior Medical Technician, Barb Hall, was in charge that day. Barb located her owner and learned her name is Luna. The owner released Luna to FAHS and advised she cannot take care of Luna, who is about one year old and recently gave birth. After a brief discussion concerning the dog’s critical condition, Barb picked up the phone and called Oregon State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Arrangements were made and on Monday morning, volunteer John Horrillo drove Luna to Corvallis.
Dr. Jennifer Simpson determined Luna’s back was indeed broken with one vertebra out of alignment resulting in some spinal cord damage. Her surgical task was to move the vertebra back into alignment with the help of a surgical plate, and in time, attempt to get the vertebrae to fuse. In addition, Luna’s tail had been crushed and amputation was necessary. After the surgery, senior veterinary student Jeni Gallagher offered to foster Luna. "At first, my job was to keep her quiet," advises Gallagher. "She couldn’t walk at all and we could tell she would have some return but she couldn,t support any weight.
In the fifth week after surgery, Gallagher is performing leg and back massage with the goal of keeping the muscles relaxed. She also does electric stimulation releasing low level electricity in little pulses to keep Luna’s leg muscles from atrophying. "As she gets stronger," says Gallagher, "we will put her in a treadmill pool which will allow her to work while not bearing all the weight of her body." She advises the bones will take almost a year to make a full recovery. "There will always need to be attention paid to her bones and her weight because she may always be more vulnerable."
Jeni Gallagher will be graduated from the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine in 2010. She now shares her life with a Chihuahua from a Multnomah County shelter and a two-year-old American Indian dog rescued from a northern California reservation and she is hoping Luna can join.
