He would do well in a quad cart, the only issue is he is still growing at only 7 months old. We can't afford to buy one for him to outgrow in a couple months and need another, we have been trying to hold out until he gets a bit bigger.

So I took Dexter to the Vet to get updated X-rays for the vet to send to UF so they could see what his spine looks like now. With the way he has been holding his feet I asked her to take an xray of his feet and she did. And now we know that on top of having his spinal problems, both of his back legs the inside part of the growth plate is still open and growing and the outside has closed up and stopped growing. That is why his legs are bowing out, and this problem is only going to get worse as he continues to grow. The vet feels like we are fighting a losing battle. She found out from UF that the spinal surgery would be somewhere between $6000-10,000 and I just don't see us raising that kind of money fast enough to be able to help him. On top of the spinal surgery he would need to have his growth plates distrubed in his knees to keep them from growing anymore..it won't correct the damage so far but it will stop it from getting any worse. At 7months old we can already see arthritis starting to form in his joints. I am afraid she is right. Right now he can't get around good but he doesn't seem to be in any pain so we can just wait till he seems to be more uncomfortable and put him down, or we could try and do a wheelchair to help prolong his life a little, I am afraid it wouldn't be anything very significant but maybe we could get he to live past a year old. I am really torn with what to do. He already has a sore on his back foot that is laying on its side when he walks. He barks and growls at me if I mess with his feet, so I know there is some pain there. I was just so sure that he was going to be ok. He was progressing so well up until about 2 weeks ago =(

I am sorry to bring such awful news to everyone but I wanted to keep everyone up to date regardless of whether it was good or bad. I would like to change the donations over to needing around 500 to get a quad cart for Dexter. We are going to try to put some money aside as well, but in order to keep the pain from progressing too fast we need to get him off his back feet as soon as possible.

I actually have an awesome update. My vet has been working over time fighting for Dexter, she found a doctor in town that does back surgeries, what Dexter needs is more complicated than he can do but, but he has a neurosurgeon friend in Charlotte NC that he has contacted and they are willing to do the surgery together at minimal cost (cost of the actually pins/etc that will be put in Dexter's back) probably around 500. They can't do it this week but next week Dr. Odom will take Dexter to Charlotte for the surgery. They are doing a wonderful thing by donating their time and resources for this surgery. Now all I have to do is come up with the minimal costs. We are organizing a yard sale for this weekend or possibly next weekend to raise as much money as possible and now with a resonable goal and a surgery set up I am hoping to be able to raise the money for this. They are going to be doing a 6-10k surgery for under 1k which is amazing. They felt confident that he would recover. He may need 1 more surgery once he is fully grown for his leg issue but I am hoping he won't even need that. If he does Dr. Odom would probably do it for minimal cost/free as well. I feel like with better control over his back legs they many not be as big of a problem though.