Martha

L had a ride on Meg in the morning and then we headed onto Cannock Chase for a walk.  As we got out of the car we noticed this dog heading back to the car park with its owner.

As you can imagine it was an unusual sight so we went over and chatted to the owner.  This is Martha, an 11 year old German Shepherd.  She had an injury, complicated by arthritis and was now completely paralysed in her back end.  Despite that we were told that she had just been out for over an hour's walk.

Afterwards we discussed her circumstances and both felt quite conflicted by what we'd seen.  We had also been told that because of the paralysis she was doubly incontinent.  She seemed happy, in fact she was reluctant to get back into the car and we were told that she liked to walk so much this was always the most difficult part of the walk.  We've not owned a dog, but with our cats it was usually when they went off their back legs that we made the most difficult decision.........