Anabel's injury fund

***UPDATE*** Anabel has now recovered significantly and is back to her music. She is not fully healed and will be requiring Physiotherapy/Hydrotherapy for the foreseeable future, so we are leaving this fundraiser active in case anyone would like to donate towards her ongoing injury costs. But we are grateful to those who have helped her recover thus far.

Anabel is one of the few doggy musicians in the world, predominantly playing the drums with me accompanying her on her cello. She started on social media just before Christmas last year (2024) and already has nearly 100k followers. She has been invited to perform on both America’s Got Talent and Britain’s Got Talent, as well as various TV shows including the Jimmy Fallon Show.

Unfortunately, Anabel has been unable to play her beloved drums for nearly a month after sustaining an injury. I realise some people will be interested in her full story, and others won’t have time. So if you would just like to read a summary of what we are raising money for, please skip to the last 2 paragraphs.

On a Saturday in May Anabel went swimming, and there was no sign of any issues on the rest of the Saturday and Sunday. On Monday morning she went for her normal walk and afterwards ate breakfast happily and went to sleep. All with no sign of any problems. However, after about 30 minutes she woke up screaming in pain. There had been no indication of any issues so I had no idea what could be wrong and I rushed her to the emergency vet where they found she had hurt her neck. The vets suspected that she might have overused her neck when she was swimming then slept on it funny on the Monday which exacerbated the injury. She was sent home with pain killers and anti-inflammatory pills, but I was warned that any sign of deterioration she needed to be rushed back in as it could actually be meningitis as these have similar symptoms – just worse, so it could be that she was in the early stages of this disease. I was devastated.

On the Tuesday and Wednesday following the injury she refused to move, refused to eat and would yelp with every movement. Thankfully by the Thursday she was looking better, and she was cleared from the meningitis by the vet, who referred her to a physio and doggy chiropractor.

For the last few weeks she has been receiving chiropractic, physio and laser treatment for her injury. It has been found that she has a weakness in one of her back legs which although they think isn’t causing her pain, is suspected to have caused the injury to her neck by forcing her to overuse her front muscles in swimming to compensate for the weakened back ones. We are hoping with several more weeks of laser/physio/chiropractic treatment she will essentially be pain free and back to playing her drums. However, it has been strongly recommended that she continue with physio treatment after that, and add in hydrotherapy to increase the strength of her back legs to prevent any further injuries occurring.

Luckily she is insured so they will hopefully cover quite a lot of her medical expenses. However, they will definitely not cover it all, and we will need to purchase various pieces of physio equipment to build the strength in her back legs to prevent further injury. Ideally we would also love to buy some at-home magnetic therapy equipment to help her recover fully from this injury, help with her rehab and have on hand for any future injuries.

I am not usually one to ask for money from others, but we have had very kind messages from many of her followers asking if they can help or donate towards her care. So I decided to set up this GoFundMe for Anabel so that those who wanted to help can. I am on a very low income at the moment so affording everything she is going to need is definitely going to be a struggle, and I’d love her to able to get the medical help she deserves. Each physio appointment so far has cost over £100 (about $140).

Every penny raised will be spent on helping her becoming pain free now and getting her to the stage where long term she is not likely to be injured from her weakened back leg, and so is fit and healthy to continue with her drumming and able to participate on things like AGT/BGT if she chooses later down the line. We appreciate any help you may be willing to give, but if you are unable to help with her medical costs, we still appreciate all the support she gets from her followers on social media!