"Miracle dog" has to use custom chair to eat

BOISE, Idaho — A 7-month-old German Shepherd in Idaho is being called a "miracle."

The dog suffers from a condition that doesn't allow food to travel from its throat to its stomach.

Elijah eats food in a specially crafted chair five times a day.

The dog came to Dr. Zoe Baxter and the staff at ADA Animal Hospital malnourished and half the size of the other puppies in his litter.

"A ring was growing over the esophagus from the heart that normally should have broken down during development and it didn't. It allowed milk to pass through but not solid food," Baxter said.

The original owners couldn't take care of the dog, so Savannah Amerson, a vet tech at the hospital, stepped in.

"He had to be syringe-fed in a full liquid diet every two hours and that was for the first three months of his life," Amerson said.

Not only was Elijah malnourished, the dog also had a broken leg.

"He didn't have a lot of calcium and protein and some of the nutrition so he actually jumped out of one our technicians arms and broke his leg," Dr. Baxter said.

Elijah had three surgeries and many procedures in between, none of which worked.  That led to "Option D."

Essentially,  it's a high chair for dogs.

"It's supposed to make it so that gravity pulls the food through his esophagus rather than the muscles pushing it through his stomach... For once in his life he's getting a full stomach," Amerson said.

Now, Elijah frolics around the dog park just like any other puppy.

Cox Media Group