I feel completely out of my comfort zone asking strangers for money, but we are swallowing our pride and asking for your help.

Our beloved dog Skip is in a specialist vets awaiting surgery after being hit by a car on Sunday. The costs are spiralling up with every new piece of information we get about his injuries.

Who is Skip?

Skip is an adorable Jackahuahua (Jack Russell Chihuahua cross) who came into our lives a mere six weeks ago, when we discovered he urgently needed re-homing. We fell in love with him instantly and our bond with him has grown so fast, it feels like he’s been a part of our family forever. We had wanted to bring a dog into our home since Rob had life-saving surgery to remove oesophageal cancer in November last year, to help with his recuperation, and we temporarily gave up hope of finding our perfect pooch when lockdown arrived.

What’s happened?

On Sunday June 7th we went for our usual late afternoon walk along The Embankment and up to Russell Park. We let him off the lead along the embankment because he was behaving so well, and due to his incredibly good nature, he’s not remotely interested in going anywhere near the ducks or geese (in fact he’s a bit scared of them!). We left The Embankment near the footbridge and needed to cross the road to get to the park. As always, he obeyed our instructions to sit and wait on the pavement. A car drove past and Skip must have thought that was what we’d been waiting for, and in his excitement to get to the park, he ran into the road. We shouted out for him to come back and he stopped and turned back towards us, but not before another car was already going past. He was clipped by the rear wheel of the car, which, we have since discovered, fractured his pelvis in five places and tore a hole in his urethra. Thankfully the driver pulled over and was incredibly kind, as were two passing walkers who called our vets and drove us there. We are so very grateful to them for being there for us at such a stressful time. You may ask why he wasn’t on the lead to cross the road and obviously, in hindsight, we really wish we’d made that decision. The reason was that he was so very obedient at waiting until we told him to cross that it hasn’t been a problem in the four weeks we’ve had him off the lead in that area. But the lure of the park that day must have got the better of him, and we won’t stop feeling guilty for that.

Hang on, isn’t he insured?

Well, no. As I mentioned, he came into our care almost six weeks ago and we couldn’t insure him until we’d had his chip scanned. Due to the Covid19 situation, we weren’t able to get an appointment at the vet until the end of May. We then had to call the chip company and get him registered as ours. We did then attempt to purchase insurance, but the internet dropped out, so we decided to come back to it later…! However, the insurers have a five-day exemption period for accidents, so even if we had been able to insure him last week, he wouldn’t have been covered for this accident. He is now insured, but obviously, it’s too late to be covered for this.

What are the costs?

We took Skip to our excellent vets who, on a Sunday evening, did an initial X-ray and kept him in overnight. From that they could tell the pelvis was fractured, but not in any detail, and they didn’t want to cause him more pain by continuing with investigations at that stage. Naturally, we were hopeful that the damage would be minimal. He had a second scan, under sedation, on Monday morning, where they found five pelvic fractures. Two are at the bottom of the pelvis and not overly concerning, as they’re not in weight-bearing areas. Two were potentially repairable by our vets, but the worst one goes into his hip joint and is beyond their abilities to fix. Our options were to get a referral to a specialist vet 15 miles away, or have his rear left leg amputated, which would still incur a hefty cost. We opted for a potential £5-7k bill at the specialists, who assessed Skip’s situation and said their final charges should be in the region of £6k. They took new scans (different from the ones the first vet did, as they didn’t need re-doing), plus a special 3D scan, which will help them to meticulously plan the surgery. They then completed a chest radiograph, which was clear, and an abdominal scan, which revealed some free fluid between Skip’s organs. They tested the fluid and found it was mostly urine, suggesting a tear in his urinary tract. After a Flush Contrast (+£500) they found the tear, where his urethra meets his bladder. Thankfully it's in an area that's easy to get to in order to repair it, and they are hoping to complete both surgeries in one go. If the Soft Tissue team can fix the leak swiftly they are hoping to then complete the orthapaedic surgery under the same anaesthetic, in order to avoid Skip having to endure two seperate operations. This adds a further £2k to the bill.

So, the initial vets bill for Sunday evening to Monday morning is around £1000. The quote for surgery is £6000 and now there’s the possibility of an additional £2500, totalling £9,500. At this moment we don’t know how they’re going to repair the main fracture (he may need a new ball for his ball and socket joint).

As I mentioned, Rob is still in recovery from his cancer surgery and unable to consider going back to work until the social distancing rules have eased. I have some savings, but not enough to foot this entire bill, which for all we know, may get even higher.

If you feel able to help us, with any contribution, no matter how small, we would be eternally grateful. I will more than happily bake cakes as a thank-you and host meet-ups in the park with Skip when he’s recovered (in 6-8 weeks), providing the lockdown is eased enough.

Thank you for reading.