Please Help! Knee Surgery for Bella

So, this is my best girl Bella.

She is 9.5 years old, and I’ve had her since she was born. Her mother was our old dog, who we bred with my ex’s parents’ dog to get a litter of puppies, one of which we kept. Bella was immediately noticeable as being more scared and anxious than her brothers and sisters. She would hide from us, or cower in the back of their pen, even though all the other puppies were eager to greet us and get whatever treat we had for them. We originally were going to keep a different pup, but we quickly realized that it would be the height of cruelty to send Bella out into the world without the humans she had finally learned to trust, without her mother, without her father, and to someone who might be expecting a fierce guard dog, instead of the nervy anxious mess that she was. And it turned out, that was the best decision we ever made, as Bella became a de facto Emotional Support Pet for me. She has been there for me through some of the roughest times of my life, always ready to snuggle and give me gentle kisses and hide in bed for hours at a time.

Unfortunately, a few months ago Bella began developing a lameness in her left knee. The vet said she had clearly torn something in her knee and we could try medical intervention of restricted activity and painkillers, but that she might need surgery. The medical intervention unfortunately did not work, and so now we are left with expensive knee surgery. We have a board certified orthopedic surgeon here in Gainesville, and everyone seems confident the surgery should bring her back to her old levels of activity and eliminate all her pain. But it is very expensive. For the x-rays, surgical consult, and surgery itself it’s about $2800. I have a credit card to put the payment on initially, but I need to pay it off in 6 months or face penalties. With my own health issues, recovering financially from cancer last year, and attempting to move out of my ex’s house as soon as possible as a single parent, I am not going to be able to do it on my own.

So. I’m crowdfunding. I’ve created a GoFundMe, which people have been contributing to already and I’m so grateful for every donation. But I still need about $1800, so every little bit helps. If you can drop a few dollars I will be eternally grateful, and pay you back with cute dog, cat, and turtle pictures on this here old blog. And if you can’t, no worries, I completely understand how hard everything is right now, just do me a favor and pass the fundraiser link along! The more people I can reach, the more likely I am to be able to make my goal!

As a pre-emptive thank you, here is an old picture of Bella and her 6 brothers and sisters and my (at the time) toddler son. They were all pretty cute together!