LLEWIS

I never write about Llewis.
LLewis's full name is Bonsai's Gravity Storm (aka Lewis Lewis. Shortened for convenience in writing to Llewis.)
Llewis was named after my husband's Grandfather--Lewis Lewis. Yes. Really.

Llewis was born in this room. Almost in the spot where his brother Nigel's pen is, now.  His Mother was Zelda, his Daddy some hotshot show dog from Puerto Rico, a dark and handsome dog who was top Basset in PR for two years, and was here on a lease. Llewis was, I think, the fourth of five. He is older than Nigel by several minutes.

Shortly after his birth, when the buppies were starting to really try to move around and walk (ho ho) we noticed something was wrong, really wrong with Llewis's rear assemblage. I was told (not by the Vet) oh no he's fine: he's a Basset. Vet said well maybe he is a swimmer, and so we hobbled his back legs together to help him stand, but after a certain point in puppydom, the hobbles didn't work anymore.

Those rear legs just didn't work right at all. Puzzled, the Vets took another look. One, Dr T, after watching him "walk"-- he could but not well or easily-- probed with her hands and said "I don't know whether he has a femur!"

So it was off to the U of Wisconsin with little Llewis, who was by then at the absolute cutest of the cute basset puppy stage. He was an "ahhhh" Buppy, friendly, waggy, stumbly in the extreme. Off he went with the Vets to be figured out.

And back they came much later. The Vet clutching a wagging, licking, sweet Llewis to tell us: he has not enough femur to reach the hip socket were there a hip socket to reach, but there is not. He also has some definite neurological deficits, very very poor conscious propreoception. Don't breed him (oh yeah-- he had no testicles descended) and don't repeat the breeding (as if).

I said "Would you put him down?" (Not that I had any intention of doing so.)
The Vet pulled Llewis closer to his body, shot me a look of pure rage, and said "NO!!! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??" (If I had actually been considering it, I never would have gotten Llewis back.)

So home he came and I began taking him to a re-hab place, where they did acupuncture, chiropractic work, fed him frozen peanut butter in a cup, massaged him, and built him a very expensive state-of-the-art brace for his
rogue back leg which now was beginning to be locked in a straight position. They wanted it to be flexible. And eventually they suggested we have an ortho Vet look at him because they had done all they could. Naturally, they could not make bone grow, which was what he needed.

The Ortho Vet roared WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Get that brace off of him: he is not using the muscles and that is all he has going for him. Get that silly thing off and let him be a puppy!!

So we did.
And here we are 6.5 years later with Llewis now and then needing laser treatment or a couple of days on Rimadyl, but running and playing and being a nuisance. He cannot counter surf. He cannot go up steps. He steals food if he can, he laughs a lot, and he is VERY verbal.
Llewis, of the three Bassets is possibly the most active and easiest to deal with. We ask nothing of him, and we get everything.