Cleared for Takeoff: Maverick the Pug soars after treatment at Veterinary Teaching Hospital

We were a little over 12 weeks post op, and he's perfect. There is nothing he cannot do at this point. He is finally getting to be a puppy. I am Tamara, and this is Maverick. He was five months old. He started dragging his back right leg. So we took him to our vet, and they said he had pulled a muscle in his back. About a month after that, he got where he couldn't walk at all. He presented for being acutely unable to walk. So basically, he was born with what we scoliosis, curvature of the spine, as well as kyphosis, which means the spine is bending at kind of an inappropriate angle, so it's curving up. Gig issue was how young he was. So since he was only a couple of months at that point, ideally, you do not want to do a surgery where you're kind of trying to decompress and stabilize the spine until the spine reaches maturity, which is in a pug, about nine months to ten months of age. The owner was basically sending me a video email so I could see how he was moving his legs and kind of how his degree of movement was overall. I have two little boys. They are ten and 13, so they sit and help him do his step ups, crawling under their legs, walking around the basement, just helping to strengthen his back legs. With his surgery, it was a whole team approach. We were concerned, originally after surgery, he had worsened a bit, but one of the big things we had planned for after was intensive rehab. I first met Maverick in the hospital. So he was coming for his, like, initial evaluation through neurology, and they were planning on doing his surgery, which was a major surgery. So when I initially saw him, he was moving his legs, we weren't really sure how we were surprised and happy to see that he had some motor at that point in his back leg. He was a little bit of a challenging case because of his personality, so he wanted to do a lot more independently than he wanted help with. But he's progressed a lot. We've progressed. Every time I've seen him, he's improved some. So now we're at the point where he's not using any assisted devices. So it was I told Tamra from the very beginning that this is, you know, 90% of his recovery is going to be on her and Maverick's family for him to get better. So she was super, super, super committed and was willing to just take all advice and do everything she possibly could. So it was a really nice working relationship. He loves it. He loves the food. He has no idea he's doing therapy, but everyone here has been great giving us exercises at home that we can do where he's playing but actually getting therapy at the same time. Were great. Everybody here has been great with him. He had surgery on a Tuesday. He come home on a Friday. Six weeks post op, he started therapy and has been improving every day since.