Sweet, Sweet Buster…..

Buster was born August 21, 2004 in Bernie, Missouri. We went down to MO to spend Thanksgiving with family and brought our precious lil‘ Buster home with us. He is a great addition to our family

What a face!

I did some photoshop tricks with this photo. Love it!

Buster always looks like he was out partyin‘ the night before with his droopy red eyes and sad face. Such character!

Buster may look intimidating and mean but truly he is the sweetest dog you could ever meet. He may lick you to death but biting you would never cross his mind. Off and on as Buster grew up he would wrestle and play with Daisy and end up hurting his leg and would limp for a few days afterwards. We knew he had hip dysplasia so we attributed the pain to that. Well a few weeks ago, Buster started walking real slowly and just wasn’t his excited playful self……also I pet him on the back and he yipped. We were headed out of town at the time so Kevin took him to the vet and he gave him some pain medication….he wanted to do x-rays but they were backed up and it would be approx a 3 hr wait so Kevin decided to reschedule the x-rays.

We suspected that Buster may have been hit by a delivery truck because we had three deliveries the day before this all started and Buster tends to run out to “greet” anyone that pulls in the driveway by running up to the vehicle.

The pain medication seemed to be working at first, but the past few days, he has been walking extremely slow again, was having a hard time laying down and wouldn’t eat his morning meal.

I took him to the vet yesterday for x-rays and we received bad news. Buster’s left knee has bone spurs and arthritis and he has hip dysplasia in his right hip. Both causing him pain. But the worse part is his spine. He has Spondylosis deformans .. “a degenerative, noninflammatory condition of the spinal column characterized by the production of bone spurs along the bottom, sides, and upper aspects of the vertebrae of the spine”. Some of Buster’s vertebrae are actually touching causing pressure on the nerves which results in tremendous pain.

So…the treatment you ask? Well, the pain medication he was taking for his knee and hip unfortunately cannot be taken with the steroids that he needs for his back. However, it is his back that is causing the majority of pain. Buster will be taking steroids for the rest of his life…..there is no cure, only pain management. Sweet, sweet Buster is breaking my heart