(EDITOR’S NOTE: This column was written by Karen Land for the Great Falls Tribune, August 2004.)
This summer Goat has been lifting weights every day. With his teeth.
Goat is actually a sled dog, one of my Alaskan Husky yearlings. Goat came from a litter I named after different varieties of cheese, but his title is extra fitting because he looks like a mountain goat. His short back, long arched neck, and muscled shoulders give him his Billy-like posture, as if he’s always perched on a rock looking down on the world. And his thick white wooly coat helps him play the part too.
Goat didn’t start working out until after his injury. One morning last April when I went to feed the dogs, I found Goat stumbling around his area like a drunk. I called his name and when his brown eyes met mine, I saw a worried dog. He knew something was wrong.
Goat still wagged his tail but the rest of his behavior was odd. Every time he tried to come to me he would tumble over, unable to walk in a straight line. His entire body seemed to be drawn into a tight knot with his head and neck cocked sideways.
Dr. Rick Scherr from Big Sky Animal Medical Center and Dr. Terry Adkins worked together to figure out what was wrong with Goat. They thought it could be an injury but his symptoms also resembled those from a syndrome called Cervical Wobblers, usually found in purebred dogs like Dobermans or Great Danes. After taking a Myelogram where dye is in injected into the spinal column and the neck flexed and x-rayed, Dr. Scherr decided to try surgery to fuse the unstable vertebrae.
Thankfully, Goat never had to go under the knife. Dr. Scherr treated him with steroids for several days and was delighted to see a noticeable improvement with the drugs. He put off surgery and sent Goat home to see if things couldn’t heal with time.
Goat wasn’t willing to sit back and hope that his health improved. After a month recovering in his own kennel, I let him loose in a fenced-in field with a few friends for more exercise. That’s when he got to work.
It took me awhile before I caught Goat in the act of practicing his self-induced physical therapy routine. Usually I have a 3 gallon water bucket sitting right next to the gate for easy fill-up with a hose. A few days after Goat joined his buddies in the yard, I found the bucket 60 yards away in the opposite corner of the field. At first I just assumed that one of the others had dumped the water and decided to use the bucket as a play toy, but when I went to retrieve it, I was shocked to find the pail was over half full. “Very strange,” I thought as I carried the bucket of water back to its place.
Then one evening I saw him. Moments after filling his water bucket to the rim, Goat walked over and flipped the plastic handle up with his nose, catching it in his teeth. He spread his front legs wide as if he knew to bend at the knees when lifting heavy objects, and slowly hoisted it a few inches off the ground.
Goat’s head and neck had been shaved for the x-ray, leaving him with a wide reversed mohawk. The muscles in his arched neck strained and twitched as he turned and plodded down the fence line with his heavy load. Water splashed up in his face but he just squinted his eyes and trudged forward.
With a careful, deliberate pace, he treaded onward up the hill, bypassing patches of cacti, rocks, and holes without ever setting his pail down. It took Goat minutes to get to the opposite corner of the field where he lowered the bucket to the ground and then took a long drink of water.
Goat works out faithfully every day. Better than most humans I know. Sled dog training starts in August. Looks like he’ll be ready.
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