CH Zephyr's Lively Baco Noir RN AX AXJ NF CL1-F, CL2-R, CL2-H - 7/19/14 - 3/24/21
It is still almost impossible to speak or write about this without provoking tears. The loss of any dog is unbelievably sad, and hard, but the sudden loss of a dog in the prime of his life is a deeper, more agonizing wound.
Baco was an impossible dog who seemed likely not to survive his first week. I worked very hard on him when he was born, massaging, keeping him warm, and constantly putting him back on a nipple. Amazingly he thrived, and grew into a lovely, flashy puppy. I thought he deserved a show home but I didn't have one so I held onto him and he never left. Despite his relatively small stature, he finished with 4 majors from the BBE class.
In my house, everyone does at least some agility. I did not have high hopes for him initially, as he was rather sound and motion sensitive. However, by the end of our Level 1 agility classes one of my instructors dubbed him "the weave pole savant". Once he had the basics down, my ongoing challenge was how to handle and channel that much drive. It was like trying to drive a race car with one finger on the steering wheel and almost no brakes, though to his credit, if he knew what I wanted he would try to do it. He really wanted to work with me. My ability to train him was complicated by the fact that beginning the same year he was born, my time and attention became divided between my dogs and some personal family issues. For a couple of years Baco even lived with my in-laws and was their loving and devoted companion. When time and energy permitted, I would pick him up for classes and events. In the fall of 2019 he came back to live with us full time and the added connection of our once again full time relationship helped improve our agility skills.
He was only seven weeks younger than his cousin Koan. They were lifelong dog bed buddies and playmates.
On March 24th he had breakfast and a morning walk and seemed his normal self and then a few hours later he was not. He came to me looking extremely uncomfortable, but I didn't know what was wrong at first. It was not until he went down in the rear that I suspected a disc issue. Even though I was fairly quick to get him to the ER vet, by the time he was examined he had lost deep pain sensation in his rear legs. This greatly decreased his chances for a surgical recovery. In addition, his presentation made him potentially susceptible to myelomalacia, which could have resulted in complete paralysis post-op even if we had moved forward with the surgery. We did diagnostics through an MRI to confirm the issue, two herniated discs with significant swelling, between L1 & L2 and L2 & L3. George and I made the very difficult decision to let him go. It wasn't the cost of the surgery or the work of rehab that kept us from going forward, it was his odds combined with his personality. He had two speeds, on and off, and because he was so intense, we don't think he would have had a good quality of life if he couldn't have continued to run agility.
As hard as this is to write about, I think it is important to get my experience out there for public consumption, and in particular for people in the breed who don't believe CDDY is an issue in Tollers because they have never seen it. That mindset reminds me of an old obedience adage, "There are the dogs that have gone down on the long sit, and those that will." We have a breed that is genetically predisposed to IVDD if they carry even one gene for CDDY. While it's true many Tollers carry one or two genes for this issue and make it through life without experiencing disc herniation, too many, like Baco, do not. Despite my experience, I'm not comfortable advocating for the immediate elimination all CDDY carriers from our gene pool because our pool is relatively shallow as it is and we have multiple health issues to balance. However, I do believe it's imperative for breeders to give serious consideration on how to manage this issue in their breeding progam and to make choices that reflect a strong concern for the health of our breed above all. The next dog lost to this might be your own.
Baco was like a tuning fork that never stopped vibrating. As high energy as his grandmother June was, Baco was even higher - and yet he did have an off switch. Our house is too quiet without him and I still miss him every day. In the words of Neil Young: "The king is gone, but he's not forgotten..."
