Cheddar

In June of 2012, Cheddar, our 11 year old beagle, would not get out of bed. We knew he had been sore so I picked him up and put him on the floor where he proceeded to try to walk, but he could not move his back legs.

We immediately took him into our vet, Maria Kenny, who is a University of Minnesota graduate. While she is used to us coming in for every little thing wrong with Cheddar and his soon to be 13 year old beagle brother / uncle Caesar; she knew that we needed to take him into be evaluated and directed us to the University of Minnesota Veterinary Medical Center.

We brought him in and were given our options and elected for surgery and were told that one of two things would be found in the surgery, a tumor or a ruptured disk. Thankfully it was a couple of ruptured disks and the surgery was successful; but we were told that if he got to 80% that it would be considered successful.

In 2003, Cheddar and Caesar were nationally ranked beagles in agility and while they have been retired for some time we didn't know it at the time, but they both had their last fun run of a course in May of this year as part of our family photos.

We will never even try agility with them again, but today I took them for a walk that was over a mile long and if there wasn't still a slight showing of where Cheddar was shaved from his surgery no one would notice that he was unable to walk at all five months earlier. It is so fulfilling that Cheddar is just as excited as he was when he was a pup to hear it is time to go for a walk and to have him pulling on the leash the whole way.

Thank you so much for everything you did.

Matt