Lila's Emergency Care

I have always been opposed to asking for help; I want to say first, if helping me is a burden to you in anyway please don't donate. Anything is appreciated beyond words and there would be no judgement from me if you can't...I have always kept an emergency fund for my animals because I feel that you shouldn't have them if you can't pay for their care. This has been the month from hell with vet bills for me. My dogs are my livelihood, I raise and train working German Shepherds who do jobs such as personal/family protection, Schutzhund (a sport for obedience, tracking and protection), police work, search and rescue, agility, and many more. The vet bill bonanza started with my male, Zorro, who suffered from bloat and a twisted stomach. This is a life threatening condition. We rushed him into emergency surgery to right his stomach and attach it to his abdominal wall to help prevent it from reoccurring. He was hospitalized for several days but luckily survived. Following that my companion dog, Tulip, fractured her elbow and back to the vet we went. Then we discovered an injury on my horse, Ghost, and to the vet we went. (This is just giving you an idea on why funds are limited going further). On the evening of Thursday the 10th of August, Lila went into early labor (she wasn't due until the 15th). She passed two dead puppies and two live puppies and was having trouble with the 5th one. After 2 hours of pushing had passed since the 4th puppy arrived and some unusual behavior was happening I knew she needed help. At 2am we went to the emergency vet, confirmed the size and position of the last pup and tried the use of oxytocin to help move it along. This did not work so we went to C-section. Unfortunately, the puppy did not survive surgery, the other two were struggling and mom was having trouble breathing. It was discovered that she had what is called Pneumothorax, a problem in the lung which causes it to leak air into the chest cavity. As it fills up the lungs can't expand properly and the dog cannot breathe. I left her and the two puppies hospitalized and they drained the air from her chest every few hours. It wasn't resolving so we were sent to a specialty hospital in Los Angeles. We were quoted $5500-6000 for the first 24 hours of hospitalization and that is with minimal treatments. Included in that would be the care, oxygen treatment, blood work and draining of the chest. Additional costs would be the care past 24 hours if she remained in the same condition. If the chest continued to need to be drained then they would place a chest tube and if it continued to worsen they would use a machine which hooks to the tube and provides constant low-level suction. Then they would need to do a CT scan and decide about surgery. If it goes to that point the estimates are up to $20,000+. At that point, I was sick to my stomach. I had the vet get her stable and we transported her back to the original vet to go back into respiratory hospitalization. I just couldn't afford it after everything. To top it off, one of the two living puppies passed away after about 18 hours with the vet and the other passed away at about 36 hours. So I am breaking down and accepting some help if you feel you would like to. My vet bills have exceeded $6,000 and are still increasing with Lila hospitalized. If she worsens I will have to return to the specialist or face the option of putting her to sleep.... the picture on the campaign is from when I got to visit her. Even though she was weak and panting she was very happy to see me. Thank you. Anything would help.