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Dear friends,

A few weeks ago someone requested my help in the case of Charlie, a Romanian dog, paralyzed, that would be put to sleep unless a family was found for him within days.
I inmediately responded and contacted the rescuers. Charlie was reportedly paralyzed because of a bad beating, a bad man had beaten him up and left him paralyzed. The romanian vets took an Xray and concluded he was paralyzed due to a very minimum fracture that compressed the bone marrow. I was told they did a distemper test, that came out negative.
Over the following weeks we worked on the logistics of getting Charlie to Germany. Sadly, paralelly, Charlie’s condition evolved in a negative way. In his first location Charlie was kept on a wire cage so that urine would leak to the floor, as his condition deteriorated he was moved to a second clinic where he got worst.. finally to a third. At the same time his condition deteriorated in the way the pictures show. The last picture shows Charlie’s condition on the day of his flight.

At that stage I started suspecting his condition were not trauma related. Charlie was shaking, paralysis had moved to the front legs…

On Sunday the 7th of August Charlie flew from Bucharest to Frankfurt where he was received by our team. He was greeted and cheered, fed the first good meal he must have probably had in his life and driven to his foster home where he was given the best spot in the house.

Sadly, within hours Charlie had to be rushed to our clinic with irregular breathing. He spent his first night in Germany on the Intensive Care Unit of one of the best clinics in Germany, the Lesia clinic in Dusseldorf.
The following morning his condition had worsened significantly. A battery of test was performed. No money was spared in trying to find out what was Charlie’s problem.

I am hereby reproducing the Full Report in English and GermanTranslation to English..

Certificat/investigation report
Dog owner: Mrs. Von Malzahn (address)
Species: Dog Charlie
Breed: cross
Born: 1 Januari 2011
Sex: male

The abovementioned animal was presented for examination on August 8th 2011.
Preliminary: Paralysis of front and back limbs for months (cannot walk and stand), is from Romania, has just flown in with a suspected old vertebral fracture.

General examination (only abnormal findings):
Dog highly cachectic, high generalized muscular atrophy, on both hipbones infected bedsore puts the size of a palm of a hand.

Neurological examination:
Awareness / behaviour: growls when touched on limbs and shows agressive behaviour when examined.

Attitude / gate: cannot walk or stand. The dog shows generally, rhythmic, repetitive twitches of single muscle groups (especially in the head and neck area) which are also visible under anaesthetic (= myoclonus).

Attitude and deputy responses: in all limbs highly delayed up to absent.
Correction responses generally absent.
Deep pain in all limbs.
Head nerves: cannot be examined because the dog reacts defensively (tries to bite).
Autonomic functions: urinary incontinence, urine smells bad (urinary infection).
Neuroanatomic localization: multifocal (spinal cord, cerebrum/limbic system).
Differential diagnosis: flammable (metabolic/toxic, degenerative, posttraumatic, neoplastic).
Computed tomography: spinal column (native and Myelo-CT): no reference of compression or deviation of the contrast medium column, no reference of a vertebral fracture or vertebral dislocation.

Brain (natively and after contrast iv): brain parenchyma with multi focal, inhomogeneous hypodense herds before and after giving contrast liquid (encephalitis).
CSF: initiated to check for encephalitis.
Distemper-PCR (liquor) initiated.

Assessment so far:
Based on the results of the neurological examination (multi focal illness of the central nervous system with myoclonal muscle twitches) and the given image (inhomogeneous brain parenchyma and exclusion of a spinal cord compression / post traumatic illness) there is a suspicion of a central distemper infection. Other causes for the neurological deficits (especially other infections in the nervous system) can at this time not be excluded with certainty but are unlikely because of the myoclonal muscle twitches which are very typical for a central distemper illness.

For further diagnostics an examination of the cerebrospinal fluid has been initiated to look for inflammatory cells. However, false negative results can occur, especially with a chronic distemper infection.

Based on the high grade clinical symptoms (cachexia and muscular atrophy, bedsores, cystitis) and high grade neurological deficits with the suspicion of a central distemper infection and the bad prognoses because of that, the owners, after a detailed discussion, decided to have Charlie put to sleep without pain.

Willing to answer questions at any time.

Best regards,
Dr. Fumi

In short, and for those unfamiliar with medical terms, Charlie never had an injury in his back in the first place. Sadly, he was misdiagnosed in Romania. His paralysis was due to distemper at neurological stage. The virus had affected his brain which is the reason why he shook incontrolably and why the paralysis had extended to his front legs. Our vets concluded there was nothing anyone could do for him and, together, we took the painful decision to humanely euthanize him.

We understand the pain and frustration of everyone involved in this rescue but noone is more affected and sadder by this outcome than each and everyone of us directly involved in this rescue.

Over the last four years Let’s Adopt! has earned a reputation for going the extra mile for our animals and hundreds of rescues around the world bear witness to that. Animals like Michelle, Marlon, Sunny and Gulumser are alive today because this group doesn’t give up on an animals life. But there is a point where we have to let them go, and when Charlie arrived to Germany he was way past that point.

Charlie’s untimely death teaches us all many lessons, lessons that we hope will help us saving more animals lives in the future. We also hope his death will encourage the vets in Romania that came in contact with Charlie to improve their knowledge, procedures as well as the care of the animals they treat. We share their pain and frustration.

Rest in Peace Charlie.

For the animals

Viktor Larkhill

P.S. This evening we received an unofficial statement from Picovet Cabinet Veterinar, Charlie’s vet in Romania in the form of a Facebook post!.. his explanation to his apparently misdiagnosis is that Let’s Adopt magically generated a fake set of X-rays showing that there was no back injury in order to cover up Charlie’s murder. Basically he is saying that the best vets in Dusseldorf created fake xrays with Photoshop to cover things up. We thought we had heard everything in conspiracy theories, but this is the latest and it tops everything up. As always… let’s blame it on Photoshop .. No comment..