2B Wednesday, January 25, 2017 Appeal Tribune
Tigger starts water therapy; leg improves
CAROL MCALICE CURRIE
STATESMAN JOURNAL
Will doggie paddle for treats.
That’s Tigger’s motto these days.
The Staffordshire terrier mix who
had surgery last fall to correct the first
of two birth-deformed front legs doesn’t
much care for his water rehabilitation
therapy.
But he’ll put weight on his recovering
right leg for just about any amount of an-
imal edible.
So that’s what his rehabilitation spe-
cialist, certified veterinary technician
Dave Meyer, was using Friday at Oregon
State University’s College of Veterinary
Medicine to help Tigger develop new
muscle memory on his front limb.
It worked like a charm.
With crumbling pieces of smelly
treats in hand, Meyer helped Tigger
achieve his personal best time of 8 min-
utes learning how to walk in an underwa-
ter treadmill housed in the large-animal
wing of the veterinary medical school in
Corvallis.
“Not bad for a dog who doesn’t like
baths,” said his foster mom, Eve Good, as
she watched Tigger first drink the water
from the donated underwater treadmill
and then reluctantly put his recovering
paw in it. Marilyn van Dijk, a veterinary
assistant, kept treats in Meyer’s hands or
in front of the dog at all times.
He’d forget that he had a bum leg, put
his paw down and reach around for the
treat.
Meyer, keeping hold on Tigger via a
harness, cooed in the dog’s ear: “I’ve got
you. I’ve got you.”
And then Tigger relaxed. He’d move
his front paws forward as if on automatic
pilot. Walk, walk, walk.
Meyer moved up the speed on the
treadmill, and Tigger walked, walked,
walked some more, as if he’s been doing
it his entire young life.
Except he hasn’t.
Tigger has never walked or run on
four legs like most canines.
He has jumped like a kangaroo on his
hind two legs or inched forward on his
belly. But he has never kept up with his
foster parents’ other dogs because his
front two legs were congenitally de-
formed by a defect called ectrodactyly,
or split hand or lobster claw.
These days, Meyer has him on the un-
derwater treadmill and doing planks on a
large plastic peanut to help develop cal-
louses on the limb and strengthen his
core to protect his other limbs. He hopes
to introduce the dog to cavalletti exer-
cises (small jumps) soon to help him fur-
ther strengthen his muscles and im-
prove his balance.
“He’s been compensating his whole
life, so we take this slow,” Meyer said.
Tigger weighs slightly more than his
optimal weight of 55 pounds, said his sur-
geon, Dr. Jennifer Warnock. The physi-
cal therapy sessions may help with that.
Dr. Warnock hopes to perform the
PHOTOS BY ANNA REED/STATESMAN JOURNAL
Tigger, a bull terrier mix with deformed front legs, walks on an underwater treadmill to strengthen his front paws after surgery on the front
right leg to help correct its shape at the Oregon State University College of Veterinary Medicine in Corvallis on Friday, Jan. 20.
Get involved
To help Tigger or other dogs at Savin’ Juice
Medical Dog Rescue, send an inquiry to:
savinjuicemedicaldogrescue@gmail.com or call
(971) 213-8163. The rescue desperately needs
foster volunteers at this time. Or, go to the
Facebook page Tigger The Dog, or
http://facebook.com/Paw.For.Tigger/ There is a
link there for credit or debit card
contributions via a crowd-sourcing site.
Donors who wish to give by check can call Eve
Good at (541) 979-3633 for an address.
Tiggeris a bull terrier mix with deformed front legs.
second repair surgery on Tigger’s other
front leg at the end of March. But Good
and her partner, Troy Riggs, have some
fundraising to do first. When the States-
man Journal first broke Tigger’s story
last summer and it spread across the
country through the USA Today Net-
work and The Huffington Post, more
than $17,000 was raised in a few weeks.
More than $10,000 was spent on Tig-
ger’s first surgery, ICU stay, bandaging
needs, and his medication. At least
$2,000 or $3,000 still needs to be raised to
pay for this next round of surgery, which
will repair the second front limb and
fuse one portion of the other newly fash-
ioned leg. Dr. Warnock expects Tigger’s
condition to regress a bit as he recovers
from the second surgery, but she’s cau-
tiously optimistic the dog could be walk-
ing on both front legs by summer.
Tigger may or may not need prosthet-
ics. His X-rays currently show bone fu-
sion, which is excellent, Warnock said. If
his therapy continues to help him devel-
op callouses where he never had them
before, she believes the prognosis to be
very good.
“We want to get him functioning with-
out pain,” Warnock said. “I want him
jumping on the couch, something most
dogs take for granted. But Tigger does
not.”
Now about those treats ....
Email:
ccurrie@statesmanjournal.com or call
503-399-6746 or follow on Twitter at
@CATMCurrie
Salem couple wins $4.2 million lottery jackpot
LAUREN E HERNANDEZ
STATESMAN JOURNAL
A Salem couple turned their Christ-
mas stocking stuffers into a jackpot.
Susan Gasperini and Chris Erion typi-
cally only purchase Oregon Lottery
tickets on special occasions such as
birthdays and holidays, and they only
buy Scratch-it tickets.
But two weeks ago, the pair took their
winnings from Christmas Scratch-its to
Safeway on South Commercial Street in
Salem to purchase one Megabucks
ticket.
On Wednesday, Jan. 4, Gasperini
matched all six winning numbers on her
quick pick ticket: 4-31-40-41-45-48. The
prize: $4.2 million.
Gasperini is the 258th person to win
the Oregon Megabucks prize, according
to a statement released by the Oregon
Lottery.
The Safeway store will receive a 1per-
cent sales bonus of $42,000 for selling the
winning ticket.
In November of 2016, a fellow Salem
couple made history by becoming the
Stillborn infant highlights
Oregon’s homeless issue
TERRENCE PETTY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORTLAND - A stillborn infant was
found with his homeless mother at a
street side bus stop during unusually
cold weather. And while the infant’s
death was not blamed on below-freezing
temperatures it has driven home just
how ruthless this winter has been for
Portland’s homeless population, with
four recent deaths attributed to expo-
sure.
The infant was found Jan. 9 after
emergency responders were called
about a woman standing in the cold with
a baby. The Multnomah County Medical
Examiner’s Office said Tuesday that the
baby boy was stillborn.
The mother was unable to provide in-
vestigators with coherent information,
including where she had been living,
and is undergoing a mental health eval-
uation at a hospital, said Sgt. Pete Simp-
son, spokesman for the Portland Police
Bureau.
“In the bigger umbrella of people
who are vulnerable, it is an awful re-
minder of people living in the communi-
ty who are sometimes hidden away that
don’t have shelter or medical care, or in
this case, the mental capacity to seek
medical care,” Simpson said.
The infant’s death was first reported
Monday by Willamette Week, a weekly
Portland newspaper, after four home-
less adults died this month, which has
brought snow, ice and bone-chilling
temperatures to a city more accus-
tomed to mild temperatures and rain.
The deaths occurred during the first
10 days of 2017. The first was a 68-year-
old homeless man taken to a hospital on
New Year’s Day. The others were a 51-
year-old man found dead under a blan-
ket at the doorway of a business, a 52-
year-old woman with schizophrenia dis-
covered in a parking garage and a 29-
year-old man whose body was found in
woods where he had been living.
The frigid spell that has gripped the
Portland area since December is the
second-coldest since 1941. The average
temperature between Dec. 1 of last year
and Jan. 13 of this year was 34.8 degrees,
says the National Weather Service. The
temperature plunged to 13 degrees last
Friday and a snow storm brought a rare
foot of snow to some parts of Portland.
Normal temperatures for Portland in
January are in the 40s and high 30s.
“Fifteen straight days of snow, ice
and wind has clobbered us and no one
has suffered more than the people who
live outside,” Julie Sullivan-Springhetti,
a spokeswoman for Multnomah County,
said in an email.
The four deaths have occurred as
Portland grapples with a problem of
people who are chronically homeless. A
single-day survey in 2015 counted near-
ly 1,900 people in Portland without shel-
ter. It is unclear whether those numbers
are up, down, or about the same. But Sul-
livan-Springhetti said the winter weath-
er has increased usage of emergency
shelters.
Transients are drawn to Portland be-
cause of its moderate weather and the
city’s welcoming reputation. But rapid-
ly rising housing costs in Portland have
made it even more difficult.
New mayor Ted Wheeler has set find-
ing solutions to Portland’s housing crisis
as a top priority.
biggest Megabucks winner in Salem his-
tory. The pair purchased a $6.8 million
winning ticket at a South Salem gas sta-
tion. The gas station, a Shell station on
Commercial Street SE, received a 1 per-
cent selling bonus of $68,000.
More than $11 billion has been allocat-
ed to economic development, public edu-
cation, state parks and watershed en-
hancements since the Oregon Lottery
started selling tickets on April 25, 1985.
Oregon’s Game Megabucks numbers
are drawn every Monday, Wednesday
and Saturday.
If you’re lucky
» The Oregon Lottery recommends
people to sign the back of their tickets
for every Oregon Lottery game played to
help aid in claiming any prizes.
» Winners should consult a financial
planner to develop a plan for managing
the earnings.
» Prize winners of more than $50,000
should contact the Lottery office to
schedule an appointment to claim their
prize.
Oregon legislators
warn of painful cuts
TRACY LOEW
STATESMAN JOURNAL
Last month, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
proposed a budget showing what the
next two years will look like if lawmak-
ers can agree on new revenue mea-
sures.
On Thursday, the Legislature’s top
budget-writers released a version
showing what will happen if they can’t.
It’s grim:
Cuts in K-12 education funding will
likely lead to teacher layoffs, higher
class sizes and cuts in electives.
College students will see tuition
hikes and reduced financial aid.
Some people will be kicked off the
state’s Medicaid program, and services
such as dental or mental health will be
reduced.
“There will be Oregonians who will
directly feel the reductions on a daily
basis if we must adopt a budget at this
level of funding,” Sen. Richard Devlin,
D-Tualatin and Rep. Nancy Nathanson,
D-Eugene, co-chairs of the Joint Ways
and Means Committee, wrote in an in-
troduction to the budget framework.
Oregon faces a $1.8 billion shortfall
to fund current services and new ballot
measure spending during the 2017-2019
biennium.
The co-chairs blamed the deficit on
choices made decades ago, including
ballot measures that reduced property
tax revenues and increased costs for
corrections; and a failure to rein in ris-
ing pension costs
They said they hope their $20.6 bil-
lion budget framework won’t be adopt-
ed. Instead, they want it to galvanize
legislators and the public to overhaul
the state’s tax system.
To that end, Devlin and Nathanson
will lead the full Joint Ways and Means
Committee on a statewide town hall tour
in February to seek input on the budget.
Dates will be announced next week.
They’ll release a full, revised, co-
chairs recommended budget after the
next economic and revenue forecast,
which takes place Feb. 22.
In a statement, Senate Republicans
applauded the co-chairs for taking a
more realistic approach than the gover-
nor.
“The only way Oregon will get
through the current budget crunch is by
setting better spending priorities and
demonstrating budget discipline,” said
Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli,
of John Day.
And House Republicans pledged to
work with Democrats to deliver a bal-
anced budget.
“This legislature has an opportunity
this session to finally address the struc-
tural deficits that led us to this position
in the first place and to put Oregon on
the path to a more stable financial fu-
ture. I hope we do not let this opportuni-
ty go to waste,” House Republican Cau-
cus Budget Chairman Greg Smith, of
Heppner, said.
The 2017 legislative session begins
Feb. 1. Lawmakers must complete their
work by July 10.
Contact Tracy Loew at tloew@states-
manjournal.com or 503-399-6779; and
follow her on Twitter @Tracy_Loew