HAWAIIAN STYLE
Determination drives wheelchair-bound pooch
Patients at Tripler Army Medical Center and residents of O'ahu retirement communities forget their troubles for a while when Sukoshi the miniature dachshund walks — and rolls — in.
Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser
While it's not uncommon to enlist animals to cheer the sick and elderly, Sukoshi also evokes empathy because she has her own doggie wheelchair, the result of an accident that left her hind legs paralyzed nearly seven years ago.
Sukoshi Carroll inspires patients at Tripler Army Medical Center and retirement homes with her "can-do" attitude.
"When she got the wheelchair and I saw how happy she was, I decided I wanted to share this with others," said Sukoshi's owner, Debi Carroll, a 34-year-old West O'ahu resident.
Sukoshi — her business cards carry her full name: Mo' Sukoshi Chiisai (Little Bit Mo' Smaller) — comes with her own little yellow doggie T-shirt and blue and white aloha print sun visor.
"Oh, she has more clothes than me," Carroll said. "She loves turquoise."
Not long after Carroll got Sukoshi as a pup in 1997, the dog leaped off the living room couch. "I heard this thud," Carroll said, grimacing.
A bit shaken, the dog was still a bundle of boundless enthusiasm. But gone was any movement in its back legs. For more than a month, Carroll paid daily visits to a vet to see Sukoshi, even sneaking in steak for the little pal who for most of its life had slept in her bed.
The dog went downhill. "What I saw was a skeleton — muscles atrophied. She was a head and a rib cage," Carroll said. The dog rallied — except for her hind legs.
Carroll took to the Internet to bone up on canine physical therapy and exercise — even acupuncture ("Try explaining THAT to your credit card," she said jokingly) — that might help Sukoshi regain use of her legs. Nothing worked.
Then, there it was: a little doggie wheelchair. The little metal and canvas contraption stood only about as high as the dog — mere inches. Carroll ordered one for $200 on the Internet.
As soon as Carroll hitched the canine orthopedic contraption up to Sukoshi, off the dog trotted. "She hadn't walked for about a year," said Carroll, who had to add a leash to the unlikely little dog chariot just to keep up with Sukoshi.
Thankful for her blessings, Carroll decided to use her pet's misfortune and "dogged determination" against the odds to help others. And what's more natural than a wheelchair-bound dog helping people in wheelchairs?
Tripler responded to Carroll's inquiries, and soon, the the cute little hot dog was dispensing doggie kisses as fast as nurses dispensed pills and injections. Tripler's patients got a kick out of the two-wheeled pooch.
"If this dog can make it, so can we," seemed to be the popular consensus.
Soon Sukoshi was in demand in the physical therapy and pediatric units, as well as the orthopedic ward. Homes for the elderly were similarly interested.
One resident of Kapolei's Ka Punawai 'Ola nursing home hanai'd the dog, said Carroll. The man would scoot his wheelchair up to the door whenever Sukoshi would leave. "Bye, sweetheart. I love you," he'd call to the little dog skittering out the door on two legs and two wheels.
Now it was time to do something for Sukoshi. Last month Carroll threw her a birthday party at Dino's Doggie Deli & Bakery in Kailua, where only Sukoshi's closest friends dined on a two-tier birthday cake of cream cheese, with a carafe of the finest house water, and "pup-sicles" for dessert. "Sukoshi liked the strawberry," Carroll said.
And everyone, Carroll said, had a doggone good time.
The Advertiser's Wade Kilohana Shirkey is kumu of Na Hoaloha O Ka Roselani No'eau. He writes on Island life.
