Special Needs Pet Feature of the Week: Chickie

What is your pets name?
Chickie

How old is your pet?
Approximately 13yrs old

Where did you get your pet?
We took her out of a bad situation after a friend called us about her needing rescue.


What is your pets physical challenge?
IVDD. Her back legs are paralyzed and she requires a cart to be mobile. Chickie does have bowel control but requires her bladder to be expressed several times a day and is diagnosed with chronic UTI which we monitor daily. Chickie did not always have IVDD, it came on her one day and even though she had surgery she never got the use of her hind legs again.

What is your pets favorite thing to do?
She loves to ‘boogie’, that is the code word we ask her if she wants to get in her cart and join the others.

What is your pets favorite thing to eat?
Anything & everything! We are talking about a dachshund!

What do you love most about your pet?
I can get her all set up in the chair with me and she starts to look around the room for one of her toys and I have to get them all one at a time until she decides which one she wants. It’s usually one of the last ones I bring. I often tell her she is ‘a ghra mo chroi’, which is Irish for ‘love of my heart’

What has your pet most taught you?
Commitment. We knew we were going to do whatever we had to do to give Chickie a decent quality of life. We have also learned how intelligent they can be when worked with. Oh, also how to clean up poop.

Anything else you’d like to share?
Chickie actually named herself. When we first got her she would follow my wife around always wanting to be picked up and held. So one day BJ picked up Pepper and asked her if she was ‘my little chick-a-dee’? Well, she got all excited so BJ asked her again and the same reaction! So that name stuck and she has been Chickie ever since that day. Chickie is also one of many little ambassadors for Dodgerslist, a website and support group for people with pets that suffer from IVDD. We incorporate her cart into her costumes to bring attention to her disability and show that many handicapped pets can have a decent quality of life. Many people remember her and tell us they look forward to what costume she will be wearing each Halloween.

Keep on rollin' Chickie!!
 ***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.***