Nando - please help save his leg!

My name is Nando (after Nando Parrado, I'm a survivor too!).
I am only 6 years old, really placid and gentle; until I get to the beach, then I become a "racehorse" and throw myself into the wildest waves. Doggy surfing!

Since last December I have been travelling around Australia with Heike, my human. We started in Broome and went "clockwise".
We've been having so much fun, boating in Kununurra, exploring the bush around Darwin, went all the way up to Cape York and then down the east coast of Australia.

Until it all went terribly wrong. I was just having too much fun running with my dog friends on the Cape, and one day I injured my leg. Big limp!! It got better for a while, but whenever I was having a good play, I could really feel it again.

The vet in Nowra (Quentin, a rally lovely guy) said I had a partially torn ACL. No problem, easily fixed.
But soon after the operation, things just did not seem quite right. First I got an infection and after we treated that, me leg totally gave way and I could no longer walk.

I am lucky that by then we had gotten to Melbourne, and there is this amazing specialist here, Dr Chris Preston at the Emergency and Specialist Centre in Malvern East. If he can't fix things, nobody can! And he's a bit cute.

He took more x-rays and found that I had torn my patella tendon as well. No idea how this could happen. It's just one of those things. So he did this incredible bit of surgery, reattaching the tendon and fitting an external frame to imobilise the leg for a while.
You should have seen me, I even got quite good walking on it.

But I was sooo glad wen it finally came off after nearly 5 weeks. And not before time, because we found that in one of the areas where the pins had gone through my lower leg the bone has been affected (even though it looked really good from the outside, we were so careful and my human even did bandage changes at home) and there is now a hole where there really should not be one. And then there is also still the issue of the tissue over the metal from my first op being so thin, that I am scared I might get another "bedsore" if I don't start walking properly again soon enough.
See, the longer I keep lifting my bad leg, the more pressure there is on that area.

So Chris taught Heike how to dance with me. Lift up my front end to MAKE me put my leg down. But she's only a girl, you know? And I can outsmart her every time, standing on one leg only. She's not really that strong.



So we decided I'd be best off back at the clinic for some professional physio and some time in the water treadmill. And we've had instant results. Last night Chris texted Heike a photo of me walking! And he has been really kind, giving her a little discount for my boarding time.

But still, even though she tried to do everything right, even got insurance for me, the cost is now so high that we have reached our annual limit. And we are sooooo close to success.
There can of course be more complications with the necrosis in the bone or the knee itself, but all those things can be fixed too, the overall prognosis is still good. It is just all so expensive.
But if we give up now, the all the pain, hard work and money spent so far, will all be wasted. And I really don't want my leg amputated, if there is any hope at all of it all coming good.

And I so want to swim again. I live for the beach. I am still young and have so much more love to give. So some friends suggested we should do this "crowdfunding" thing. Heike was really reluctant to ask for money, she has had so much support already with places for us to stay and people lending a hand.
But she has also not been able to work through all this, having to stay in places longer, so I could get treatment. She does now start a new job on Monday, but we are so behind; so much debt!

Please help us. I am all she's got.

(I wanted to upload some more pictures, but somehow it's not working. you are welcome to send a facebook friend request to Nando Motzek to get to know me better.)

PS. The monetary limit set is entirely arbitrary. We have no idea what is still in our future, although hopefully now we are really starting to win! Any money left over will of course be re-donated to an appropriate pet emergency fund.