Please Help Dillon - Page 1

After some of the negativity regarding shelters, here's a breath of fresh air!

Dillon is a 7-8 year old GSD that came to AWSOM as a stray, he was very thin, & had obvious problems. He was shaking, wobbly, & had a large mass by his rectum. Dillon was in pain & had been for a long time.

AWSOM took him to the vet & discovered the mass was actually a hernia that had filled with stool. He could not expel the stool & it had grown to be 7 to 10 cms. Their vet tried to repair the hernia but special equipment is needed. Dillon is now hospitalized, & must be transferred to another hospital to receive the treatment he needs.
Dillon has been nothing but a gentleman throughout all of this. He loves people. We can see the gratitude in his eyes. He trusts us

AWSOM can't, & won't fail Dillon. We will stand by him. His surgery will cost $3500.00, AWSOM is a no kill shelter, & need donations to pay for Dillons care. 
Please contribute to Dillons Yelp for Help Fund by going to
to
www.awsomanimals.org
Thank you!!!
i paraphrased some what, but please help this poor , loving boy! 
jackie harris
 

Jackie, thank you for posting this. We sent them 50 bucks for Dillon. You are very kind to think of Dillon in the midst of your own health problems. I have been following your story and my girlfriend and I were happy to join in when Jenni very intelligently suggested that PDB chip in for you. I wish you all the best. I've had friends with cancer, and people can't even begin to imagine how painful and miserable it is unless they've been there themselves or know someone who has. My girlfriend has a friend who had the kind of cancer that you've had when she was in her 50's. She went through hell but she's in her 90's now, the cancer never came back, and she's a holy terror (in a good way)! So hang in there! The low Ca-125 value is a huge victory. Sometimes the treatment is worse than the disease for a while, but the odds are good that you'll recover from that in time. Then the world had better watch out because you will be unstoppable!

There are so many fine shelters like the one helping Dillon that the Huntington shelter's treatment of Lexi is even more inexcusable. (Story at the link below for those who are interested and haven't seen it.)

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/forum.read?mnr=780597-beautiful-female-sable-working-lines-gsd-at-kill-shelter

The Huntington shelter would have immediately dragged Dillon off to the killing room and killed him. Thank God he's in Pennsylvania and ended up with the wonderful folks at AWSOM.

 

Thank you so much JonRob for your help on both counts! I am still fighting my own demons( the after effects of chemo), and I can't do much to help these pups right now but just try to spread the word. I've been worried about Lexi, to tears....when I saw Dillon I had to jump in to try to get him some help. I hate being on the sidelines as I am now, I hope to be like your friend, & raising you-know-what with my doggies again soon! Thanks agains! jackie harris

I am sorry for Dillon's situation but many pet owners can't pay $3500 for a hernia operation. No one even questions why it costs $3500 to fix a hernia in a dog?? Veterinarians have inflated their prices by at least 100% and probably 200% in the last 10 years. If I had Dillon I doubt I could spend $3500 on an 8 year old dog for a hernia operation and I suspect the previous owners of Dillon before he came to the shelter couldn't either. I have had veterinarians charge $30 for a four ounces of chlohexidene ( $15 per gallon), $4 per 250 mg Clavamox ( $.50 or less) and tell me a 4 month old teething puppy needs surgery for a hanging tooth that was going to fall out anyway. Veterinarians are taking advantage of dog and cat owners placed in an emotional situation to extract high charges. Veterinarians don't pay malpractice insurance because they support the politicians who write the animal laws that protect their monopoly and their legal right to kill our animals and pay only the value of the animal (ie no pain and suffering). In many cases the veterinarians get together through their vet school ties or their "professional societies" and fix prices on x-rays (OFA hips) and services. The ultimate goal of the corporate Vet in a box corporate animal hospitals is to sell us insurance for our pets to protect us and our pets from their overcharging and fee fixing .. just like what has happened in human medicine. The old Science Diet dog food scam used as a money maker for the Vet clinics has evolved into full fledged greed and price fixing among vets worthy of the big corporations who fix prices, only occasionally get caught, pay the fines and keep right on fixing prices.

bubbabooboo:
"I am sorry for Dillon's situation but many pet owners can't pay $3500 for a hernia operation."

So that makes it OK for his owners to dump him on the streets to fend for himself? Dillon was a stray. His owners didn't turn him in to the shelter. So what does the cost of vet care have to do with this?

This thread is about Dillon who obviously needs all the help he can get. If you want to complain about vet bills, why not start a new thread on that topic?

Dillon was so sweet, & so grateful to the shelter staff who took him in, that they committed to saving him. His hernia had ruptured into his colon & tore through to his peritoneum, requiring a complete reconstruction of his colon & recital area. The vet surgeons greatly discounted the cost of his surgery, & the surgeons themselves donated their time, from what I can ascertain from AWSOMs posts. 
I was going back to update on Dillon, he has had his surgery & is doing much better than was expected!

He has already been up & outside to potty & was able to pass stool. As he is doing so well he will soon go to a special foster, where he will receive 24/7 care, & special high fiber soft food to keep his stools soft enough to not rupture the delicate internal reconstruction work.
throughout all of this Dillon has remained a calm, loving boy. He was in so much pain before that he had difficulty moving his back legs; now he can walk normally, & even wagged his tail at his surgical team when he awoke for them. Everyone agrees Dillon is a very special boy. Donations continue to be needed for his continued care. Donations can be made at www.awsomanimals.org specify Dillons Yelp for Help!
Again, I am paraphrasing from the shelters website, they are GSDpeople, but they don't discriminate, they take in any dog in need, but Dillons care has seriously tapped their resources.
and I can state from my own experience 5 1/2 years ago when my 7 month old pup needed abdominal surgery, we forked out nearly $5000.00 to have her happy & healthy again. It completely drained our savings, & left us in a bad situation when my own health failed me. But what can you do? It would take a harder person than my husband or I to turn those pleading, trusting eyes down. So you do whatever you can. What I can do is post this & hope kind folks will help. And if you're burnt out or disillusioned, as JonRob suggested, start your own thread to complain.
This thread is for Dillon!
jackie harris

Oh, & just to add a note, our vet is a wonderful, caring vet. She was so involved with my dog Kali during her struggle with cancer that her practice donated meds for Kali....they are there for the animals, they keep their costs low, & try to help folks establish goals for their pets that are reasonable for the pets & the owners. We live very rurally, & no one around here expects to get rich working with or for animals! Lol!
jackie harris

Happy for Dillon that he is doing better .. lots of owners can't pay $3500 for a hernia operation or any other operation and that is a fact.  Dillon's hernia was more complicated than most but $3500 still sounds steep to me.  The going cost for a simple hernia in a puppy is approaching $1000.  It used to be $500 not long ago but vets who have surgeon attached to their name can charge more for a simple operation that takes 20 minutes or less and many vets have started referring rather than doing simple surgeries themselves.  Just as in human medicine if we let the suppliers and vets continue to increase costs without questions many dogs will get no care at all and owners will be afraid to take their animal to the vet.  It would be worthwhile if veterinary practicioners could do some simple surgeries instead of laws limiting animal surgery to board certified vets .. I'm guessing that a veterinary practicioner without prescription priviledges reserved for a vet could do most of these simple surgeries for 1/3 to 1/2 of what vet charges and still drive a nice car and live in a nice house. I use a mobile vet (yes she makes housecalls) who doesn't have a staff of 10 and a brick and mortar Taj Mahal.  Her charges are reasonable and she takes more time with my animals plus she doesn't try to sell me unnecessary heart worm treatments or vaccinations as the brick and mortar vets and staff do.