Normally we have a pata de jamon in the house, an irresistible treat for a tall and able-bodied dog. Yesterday we heard Milo barking very vigorously so we came to investigate. Roscoe had pulled our ham leg halfway off of the table and was chewing on it; our little chivato was not going going to stand by quietly for that – pull it all the way off the table brother!

Roscoe so far has been great, as an approximately 9 month old puppy (who lived at the shelter with 70 other dogs for a few months) he is remarkably well behaved and trained. Aside from the occasional indiscretion with Shannon’s shoes we have had no problems with him.

It seems pretty clear that his previous owners had different ideas about dog training than we do. For the first few weeks he lived with us he would lay down and cower if we lifted our arms; he’s mostly over that now as he has learned we would never hit him. He also doesn’t really know how to play the usual dog games – I’ve been working with him to play “fetch”; initially just picking up a ball would send him cowering on the ground. We’re now at the point where rolling a ball on the ground attracts interest without fear but we’re still a ways from being able to throw the ball and bring it back.

We’re fortunate to live in the oldest part of town that happens to also be a short walk to the river and fields where olives grow and burros roam; on weekends we take the dogs here to walk. Its still amazing to watch as Roscoe encounters new things, from the bulldozer and workmen rebuilding a path to the mountain bikers to the thorny undergrowth.

Here’s hoping fetch gets less scary as time goes on.

Before long he decided to bark at some children in the near distance and this sent the herd stampeding in all directions. Still, he seemed unflapped and hopped (he can no longer run normally in or in a straight direction) merrily along his way. As we finally got near the car and relative safety something else caught his ire (although, again, amazingly, not the sheep) and he sent the sheep stampeding all over the road once again. At this point one of the cooler looking ones, that is to say one of the big ones with those nifty horns that curl around about the ears, started growling(?) and stamping his front hoof into the ground as he advanced toward us. I’m not afraid of any wall outlets but this threw me. Brian said “well, he’s protecting his flock”. From MILO??!! Ha ha – smart ram. At this point we started to ponder our explanation upon returning the rental car as to why there were ram horn dents in the car door and got out of there as quick as we could. Of course, oddly blissful as ever, Milo gave one final barking sayonara to the goats and sheep sending all 100 of them bolting at break neck speed down the freeway.

As many of our friends know, one of our dogs (Emmo) died last July and we have been missing him ever since. We knew there would come a time we’d want to find another dog to join us both because we really love dogs and we also think that as curmudgeonly as our other dog (Milo) is, he’s happiest when he has another dog in the “pack”. So after making sure we spent time remembering and missing Emmo, we knew we were ready.

Knowing that we wanted to adopt a dog rather than buy a pure bred we began to ask around about the best way to do this in Spain. We got a lot of interesting advice including “join one of those private associations” (huh?!) and “just steal one from one of the drunks or hippies by the fish market”. We finally met (through a friend) a British woman who volunteers at a dog shelter and arranged to go there with her. We could only go there by appointment and with another person and we were not given the address. We later learned that it’s because so many dogs are abandoned at shelters while no one is there, and many are killed in traffic or are just never seen again, that they will not publish their location.

The shelter is run by a Spanish woman who essentially supports the whole thing herself. (She lives in the city, has a full time job and is raising a family too.) At the shelter we met several volunteers highly dedicated to animal rights / the humane treatment of animals. Truthfully it was heartbreaking and we wanted to take home way more than one dog. There were somewhere between 50-70 dogs living there. Many were being rotated in and out on a regular basis to help socialize them with families (I think there are only 2 households helping with this though and the worry was that some would not get the attention in time and would never be able to live with people).

A team of British veterinarians had just been there to spay and neuter the dogs (every bit of it on a volunteer basis). Most of the dogs are adopted by German families and eventually make their way to Germany! Apparently many of the dogs adopted in Spain are eventually returned and they have had a lot of trouble with successful Spanish adoptions.

Recognizing that there is a lot we don’t know, we have noticed some apparent cultural differences in ideas about animals, especially dogs as pets. The shelter made us sign an agreement to neuter Roscoe when he’s old enough (with which we more than agree) but several of our Spanish friends have expressed absolute disdain at this decision because among other things, “the dog will get fat if castrated”. One friend explained that the way they kept their dog from getting pregnant was that when she was a puppy they would scare the bejesus out of her whenever she got near another dog. She never got pregnant and refuses to get anywhere near another dog. Also, many of our Spanish friends cannot fathom why we would crate train a young dog. Similarly many many people do not use a leash or restrain their dogs in any way while in public.

One of Roscoe’s first nights home with us we walked him far too near to a major plaza (because we were helping some lost tourists find it). Roscoe was on a leash but was immediately attacked/surrounded by about 8 dogs that were running free. We dropped his leash (while I was yelling in an aggressive and threatening way I’ve never known I had in me) and he took off with at least 4 of the dogs giving him serious chase. When we finally separated all of the dogs the other owners proceeded to beat their dogs while yelling at them. Most of it was over before it started but we continue to have to think carefully about how to be responsible with animals and their treatment in a culture where so many things are different.

It’s too soon to really know Roscoe (our good friend Felicity tells us after about a 2 week honey moon we’ll meet the real him.) What we know so far is that he’s very friendly (and doesn’t bite for all of you who know Milo!). He’s about 9 months old. He was adopted once by a Spanish family but was abandoned outside the gates of the shelter the first day of Semana Santa (Holy Week), presumably because the family was going on vacation (?) which seems to happen quite often we’ve heard. He does all kinds of dog things – jump up on you when he’s excited, wander all over the place while on a leash causing near catastrophic knee collisions, been caught carrying around a flip flop or two… nothing that isn’t totally to be expected or that we won’t be able to work on, and we’re very happy to have him home!

Milo went with us on our trip to Lagos and Lisbon last week and I think we can safely say he’s as fully recovered as he’s going to get. He ran on the beach, sat at cafes and barked at anything that came by the car; in short what he always did. He’s even back to barking at the same parts of “O Brother, where art thou?” – some songs in there just really annoy him it seems.

With the return of sunny weather here in Granada he’s been enjoying laying on the warm stones of the plaza on our street and on the tiles of our terrace. He’s also regained his playfulness, jumping and hopping at times and wanting to play. Of course he still doesn’t pass any of those reflex tests for his back legs but as you can see from the photos he seems to be doing just fine.

We went to the veterinarian again last week for a one-month checkup on Milo. At our last visit the vet told us that if Milo were to get better it would be within the next 4-6 weeks; Milo is walking pretty well now so we went to the vet with high hopes. We went in and placed Milo on the usual metal table and began explaining how he had improved greatly; the vet wanted so see him walk so we all went outside. To Milo I’m sure this seemed like the quickest trip to the vet ever so he hit the ground running as we left the vet.

Unfortunately the vet was less impressed with his progress, and we went back inside to complete the exam. The vet repeated the reflex tests from before to see if signals were getting from his feet to his brain and back; they are not. Milo has apparently learned to walk without being able to get feedback directly from his back legs. He can move them and move his back as well, so his walking is like a balancing act; he puts most of his weight on his front legs and with a combination of moving his back legs in time and swinging a little he’s able to walk pretty effectively. In fact we’re no longer sure that he would have passed the tests prior to the start of this episode.

The vet indicated he could still improve more but honestly he wasn’t very hopeful he would regain whatever capacity has been lost in his nervous system; we’ll return in a month for another followup.

Despite his not regaining sensation Milo is markedly better. He is able to move around anywhere he wants on his own by walking and his personality is back to normal. While we are disappointed he hasn’t recovered his capacities, to us it seems like he is back to the same old Milo and for that we are incredibly happy.

Going to the vet can often be tricky; we don’t have a car so often we rent one or take a taxi. Not all taxi drivers are big dog fans (some are huge fans though!), so take Milo in a little carry bag to help make him more attractive to the skeptical drivers; a dog in a bag is less likely to mess up your interior we think. Incredibly Milo likes being in the bag so it works out for all of us.

Milo has had a great week; he is walking for a minute or two at a time, falling down occasionally. He is still not able to walk up the stairs on our street like he used to but he can get around the house without a lot of trouble now. He still sleeps with a cone (or lamp shade as they say here) on his head to prevent him from licking a couple wounds he has; on his leg and butt from dragging himself when he falls. They are healing though and hopefully he won’t have them for much longer. He’s also back to his usual self in terms of personality which is nice to see (or not, if you know how he is normally….)

At first we thought it might be a herniated or ruptured disk. To test for that Milo had an x-ray of his spine and a spinal contrast test (they inject a dye into his spinal column so they can see the fluid in the spine). Both test results were normal. The vet gave Milo pain medicine and medicine to stimulate neural activity; they helped some but he was still not able to walk. At this point Shannon and I were terribly worried; we love Milo but he can’t live in state where he can’t walk and can’t control his bladder so we had some tough but sad discussions about what would be next.

A week went by and he got a little better – he regained control of his bladder and took some stumbling steps a few times. We returned to the vet, hoping perhaps that it wasn’t a spinal problem but a problem with his leg. The vet did a nerve test with Milo, very much like what they do with people; the vet tapped Milo’s knee to see if his legged jerked, it did, a good sign. The next test was to hold him upright and drag him backwards with his back legs touching the ground. Normal dogs will step with their legs when you do this (as if to catch their balance), but Milo’s legs remained still. This means that somewhere between his legs and his brain the signals aren’t getting through.

The prognosis is mixed; he could recover normally or he may not. The vet said to return in a month to check his progress; in the meantime we are doing physical therapy with him, dog style. Over the last few days he has show good progress, he walks 5-10 steps at a time and we practice a little bit more each day.

We’ve also got lots of stories related to getting Milo medical help, from vet robberies to a crash-course in spanish words for dog healthcare and more, one day I’ll write some of those down when they seem more funny and less urgent than getting Milo healed.