I have had Doberman Pinschers my whole life and have never experienced Wobbler Syndrome the way we experienced it with Buddy. We had to make the gut wrenching decision to put our 6 1/2 year old Doberman (Buddy Boy Royal) down after about 6 weeks of thinking his shoulder was injured. It all started around the second week of April with Buddy crying (Wincing out loud) after our other Doberman ran past him, Not even touching him, which we thought was very strange. From that day, he did not want to move much and rested most of the day and only got up to go outside to go potty. He had started shaking and panting and appeared to be in pain. We immediately took him to see his Vet who did a full exam on him and put him on pain medication and a muscle relaxer. They were thinking maybe his front left shoulder could be what was hurting him, but we could not seem to localize the pain. We restricted Buddy to no stairs, no dog door and no jumping and moved our futon downstairs where I slept with him each night and pretty much quarantined him to the main floor. We were still not seeing improvement and he could not really lift his leg to go potty, which we thought could be because his shoulder hurt him. We then went back to the Vet and had the Neurologist do a full neuro exam and they reported they did not find any neurological deficits and to keep him on his same medication regimen for now and watch him. A week went by, still no improvement and we went back and saw a different Neurologist for another full Nuero exam and again they reported not seeing any neurological deficits and referred us to Ortho, the same day. The Ortho Vet stated they could not find any issues and wanted to take Buddy off of all his medications and for us to start taking him on walks again to see how he did without the medications. So, we took him home, off all medications and surprisingly he got better. For about 2 1/2 weeks or so he did great and we thought he was on the mend. We kept him on the no stairs, no jumping, no dog door (I slept on the futon each night with him to open the door so he could go potty during the night) and went on one walk daily. We ended up boarding Buddy and Pongo for six days so we could go to our daughters graduation. Buddy got to have his own dog bed and the boys were able to be together. When I picked the dogs up Buddy seemed ok, maybe a little upset with me because he does not like boarding. For the next four days he was his old self, playing with his toys, going on walks again and he started using the dog door again. We even started to let him go back upstairs on our bed and he was elated. Then, Saturday morning he was upstairs on our bed and when he jumped off the bed, he did so very gingerly and cried when he went to lift his leg to go down the stairs. We decided to just hang out on the futon all day and just got up to go outside to potty. Before bed, we went outside and he was wobbly on his feet, which was a bit strange. I woke up with him at 5:45am Sunday morning with him next to me, he had not moved all night, which was also strange and when he tried to get up, he couldn’t. He had no ability to move his front or back legs, he was completely paralyzed. Needless to say I was in sheer panic mode and we took him to the Emergency Vet Hospital near by and we were informed it did not look good from the Neurologist’s exam and that we could do an MRI to see if there was anything we could find to give us some hope and we were holding out All hope for a miracle. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do at this point. The Neurologist let us know when the MRI was complete, that Buddy had Wobbler Syndrome, a neurologic disease in large breed dogs (Dobermans, Great Danes, Rottweilers, Mastiffs, Weimaraners, German Shepherds, Bernese and Swiss Mountain dogs and others) that affects their spine and neck. He explained that Buddy’s C 5-6 disc and C 6-7 disc were severely compressed with a lesion on C7 and gingerly let us know that he would not walk again, that he did not recommend surgery and that even if we had done an MRI in the previous weeks it would not have changed the trajectory of his disease. We were crushed. We did not understand how something like this could literally happen over night. He had been walking one day and full paralysis the next. The unfortunate fact of Wobbler’s is there is currently no cure.

I had asked the ER Vet if they knew of any research being done with Wobbler Syndrome. The Vet sent me a study that Dr Ronaldo da Costa at Ohio State University had done previously after I asked about how I could get involved as this disease is completely horrifying and so unfair. I saw in Dr. da Costa’s research that out of the 104 dogs (Dobermans and Great Danes, which are the two main large breed dogs negatively affected by this disease) he had researched, only 5% of them had full paralysis. That is what happened to Buddy, over night. It was horrifying.

Doberman Pinschers are my families preferred breed of dog and we still have our sweet Pongo who I am now worried about. Needless to say, I wanted to get involved someway, somehow immediately with this research so no other dog has to go through such a painful experience. Dr. da Costa is continuing his Wobbler’s research, and just started new research April 2024 that is funded by Morris Animal Foundation with a particular interest in Physical Rehabilitation in dogs to improve neurological function and promote better quality of life in dogs with Wobbler Syndrome with the hope for future funding to investigate genetic biomarkers and the genetic basis of Wobbler Syndrome. My goal is to help. The minimum donation accepted to make a donation specifically to Dr. da Costa’s Wobbler research is $10,000. I am reaching out, near and far to All of my dog loving friends to ask for your support in keeping Buddy’s memory alive and helping other dogs who might become afflicted by this debilitating and fatal disease. Help me raise funds to continue Dr. da Costa’s research to find a cure. Here is a link to Dr. da Costa’s previous research: vet.osu.edu/research/wobbler-syndrome

Morris Animal Foundation is a nonprofit organization that funds science to advance the health of animals around the world. Since its founding in 1948, the Foundation has invested over $149 million in more than 2,940 studies that have led to significant breakthroughs in diagnostics, treatments and preventions to benefit animals worldwide. Please help me support advancing the health of animals everywhere by contributing.