by Guadalupe Rivera

 Most of us have heard the vet say those "evil" words: "never walk again", "permanently paralyzed and incontinent", "no quality of life", "PTS is the best choice". However, time and time again, we have seen how those puppers, sentenced by "experts" to what *they* imagine is a life of misery; prove them wrong over and over again.

  WHY?

  Seriously: Why?

  *Why* would vets and specialists give such poor prognosis and have such a pessimistic attitude towards our dog's future? Answer: because *we* humans are aware of *our* limits and *we* visualize *our* future if *we* were in our dog's situation. We project *our* misery and depression in our dog's, and make decisions based on how *we* would feel if *we* were limited to a life on wheels and incontinent.

  Now...

  *Why* do dachshunds, over and over and over again, beat those odds, stand up, walk and live happy lives? Because they CAN! They don't place those mental barriers on themselves. They *never* believe for one second that they *can't*, and they have a passion for life that *we* cannot comprehend. WE place barriers for them. I'm certain that medically neuros and specialists are right: they can interpret all the MRI's, Myelograms and Scans correctly, they can pinch a poke all the right places and in fact, at a certain point, the dog doesn't feel a thing. Physically the dog is injured, seriously injured. So seriously that a *human* would give up. But a disc damages a nerve, it doesn't brake a spirit, or shrinks for one second the determination of our pups, and to this moment, doctors, vets and neuros have no way to measure how a spirit will mend a body. How determination can heal better than pills. How passion can reconnect neurons. They don't know because of their natural human mind barriers, but dachshunds have none: and THAT is why they heal.

  Let us all learn not to place barriers where there are none, and where that lack of barriers is in fact THE only difference between giving up, and recovering.

  I just released a pigeon that a week ago came to my house, not half dead, but 3/4 dead. She recovered. As I released her, Merlina, my formerly "permanently paralyzed and incontinent" dachshund, wanted to take off and fly after the bird. I just smiled and thought: Hell! Flap your ears, Hun! After ALL that you have achieved, Who knows? You might make it some day. Who am I to say that a dachshund will never fly, after witnessing miracle after miracle?