Pickles on wheels!

We found Pickles (Piccolo) last year in a village outside Ahmedabad. He had been hit and run over by a car and left on the roadside to die. He had a broken back, his two hind legs were broken and he was emaciated beyond what I have seen in a live dog. We thought we were just giving him a safe and comfortable place to die. Little did we know Piccolo would bounce back!

After a couple of months, we took in two adorable small puppies we found on a construction site. Not to be outdone by the little charmers, Pickles made sure they knew he was top dog, and took pleasure in bossing them around. As they grew bigger, he grew stronger.

When the puppies were old enough, we began taking them for walks in our neighborhood. Pickles couldn't come, of course. He managed quite well dragging himself around the garden and the house, but the road surface was far too rough for the skin on his legs. He would wait at the gate, peering through the gaps, howling and whining until we returned.

Well, thanks to modern technology, Piccolo is now joining us on our neighborhood walks. He just got a brand new, high tech doggie wheelchair! Check out this video clip of him on his inaugural expedition.

He loves it so much, he is absolutely ecstatic. Normally it takes a dog a while to get accustomed to a wheelchair (I had one before, for a paralysed dog in the US.) Not Pickles. The first time we put him in it and took him out he was squealing for joy! I've never seen anything like it. Talk about gratitude. Whenever we pass a street dog on our walks, or one passes us, he breaks into a sprint and makes chase. It's like he's trying to make up for lost time while he was incapacitated. It's hilarious. The street dogs are all afraid of him, even the tough and dominant ones, because in his wheelchair Pickles looks like something that just dropped down from the planet Neptune. They all run away at high speed, which makes it even more fun for Pickles. The neighbours in my community here in Ahmedabad don't know quite what to make of it either. They already knew I was weird, but now they think I'm from Neptune too. You should see the looks we get.

Lisa Warden
Ahmedabad

Note: The wheelchair was made by Doggon Wheels. If you need one for any semi-paralysed dog, check their site http://www.doggon.com

An earlier video of Pickles here.