Buzz the dog with a neurological condition
Buzz is a young Golden Retriever whose owners turned him in to the Bitterroot Humane Association. It was one of those tangled family situations where it's never quite clear why the dog is being surrendered, but surrendered he was. The shelter watched this big, handsome fellow lurch from A to B and decided this was a case for us.
Buzz has a neurological problem that causes a disconnect between his brain and his limbs. We took him to a specialist for a neurological exam, but the diagnosis was pretty simple: Buzz wasn't suffering from any disease. Someone had, as our specialist put it, “clocked him really hard.”
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Buzz often can't get his legs and body to do what his brain wants to do, so there is a lag between ‘thought' and ‘action.' To get through an open door, Buzz will weave back and forth as he stares at it, as if he's trying to get himself lined up. Then he'll launch himself towards the opening. (Occasionally he misses.)
And sometimes Buzz just starts circling and can't stop until he lays down or we grab him and wrap our arms around him. Other times he appears perfectly normal, cruising around looking like a normal dog. But when he's in full ‘disconnect' mode, he resembles a missile without a guidance system. At first we didn't like the name “Buzz,” but then we realized it fits him pretty well!
So these days Buzz happily zooms around the 2-acre dog paddock in front of Widget's House with his pals. When they see Buzz headed their way, the other dogs all seem to say, “Look out, here he comes!”
