Paralyzed Dog Was About to Be Put Down When Something Miraculous Saved Him

Ollie was a 10-year-old Shetland sheepdog that was about to be put down until a last-minute diagnosis saved his life.

Ollie, who lives with owners Al and Joelle Meteney in Oregon, recently returned from a camping trip when his health started to deteriorate.

According to a blog post from the DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital, the Meteneys noticed that he was having trouble walking and could only eat when he was hand-fed. They took him to the vet who, after multiple tests, found nothing.

Not before long, Ollie was completely paralyzed and unable to eat or go to the bathroom on his own.

After careful consideration and rather than watch him suffer, the Meteneys decided to put him to sleep.

They took him to DoveLewis where Dr. Adam Stone and intern Neena Golden were preparing for the procedure. Golden was scratching behind the pup’s ears, trying to comfort him, when she suddenly felt a lump.

To their shock, the lump turned out to be a tick.

Stone then remembered a rare condition he learned about back in school – tick paralysis.

According to the blog post, “This condition occurs when the saliva secreted by the tick gets into the dog’s system over a prolonged period of time.” The condition is so rare that only one other vet in the practice had ever worked with tick paralysis before.

However, the cure is simple: Remove the tick.

Ollie was given several days to see if his symptoms went away, and received a shave to make sure no more ticks were hiding elsewhere.

Ollie didn’t need a few days to recover though, he was up and about only 10 hours later.

“We were astounded by the quick turnaround,” Al Meteney said.

“We were thinking it would take closer to three days for him to heal, if it did turn out to be tick paralysis,” Golden said, according to the post. “When we got the call from his owners that Ollie was doing fine, we all high-fived each other. That might be the one tick paralysis case I experience in my career. It was exciting that we could help.”

Ollie is now back to normal and his owners are more tick conscious than ever. He was wearing a tick collar during that trip, but now his owners have added an ingestible tick prevention as well.