Bowie is a 2-year-old sweet dog living with his human family. Back in August, he lost his leg due to some prolonged health complications and there he had to learn how to do almost everything as a three-legged dog. With the help of his loving family, he figured out doing them again including going up and down the stairs.
Since he lost his back leg, Bowie will lean against the wall and do a little hop when going down the stairs. As he repeated this process every day, apparently his baby sister was watching him.
When Zeppelin joined the family in January Bowie was thriving and immediately became her role model. The pair became besties and was inseparable from each other. It seemed that Zeppelin learned how to be a dog from his big bro.
“They are always snuggling or playing together, even when there are other dogs around,” Karisa Maxwell, Bowie and Zeppelin’s mom, said. “We were nervous that Bowie would be scared to play with her as she got bigger than him, but she is so gentle with him and plays at his pace and protects him.”
As she got bigger it seemed she wanted to be more like her older brother. One day her parents noticed something adorable about her. It was weird at first but they realized what was going on. She was going down the stairs and she was hopping as her brother does.
“Zeppy always hopped down the stairs, but when she was little, we just thought it was because her legs weren’t long enough,” Maxwell said. “But as she got bigger, we noticed that she leans against the wall like Bowie and keeps her back legs together.”
Now she is going down the stairs as if she has only three legs. But her parents have tried to show her that she doesn’t have to go down the stairs that way. She doesn’t seem to care and continues to go down the stairs exactly as Bowie does. No matter what she wants to be like him.
That’s the only way she knows how to do it. “We have tried to get her to walk one foot in front of the other, but she just looks at us all confused and continues to hop,” Maxwell said.
No matter what she will keep growing like her big brother. She doesn’t care his three legs for sure. He is her only inspiration.
