Belle's Birthday Puppy Needs Your Help

Hi friends! Our family is raising funds to help us with the impending cost of two surgeries that our now 4 1/2-month-old puppy, Millie, has endured! Our 12-year-old daughter, Belle, used her own savings for Millie's adoption fee after meeting Millie at the PAWS Chicago 5K run/walk. Belle just had to have this little puppy for her 12th birthday present on September 20th. We couldn't resist this well-mannered, cuddly, talkative little 2-month-old puppy girl.

Six weeks after Millie became part of our family, at only 3 1/2 months old, she had an unfortunate tragic accident while playing on the grass in the backyard. Not a big trauma, but likely dysplasia resulting in her breaking both her elbow joints, and causing her unbearable and immense pain, evident from the constant shrieks and screams—absolutely heartbreaking. We rushed her to Blue Pearl emergency vet in Northfield, where they were able to manage her pain and we had to make some tough decisions. EITHER: 1) amputate both front legs; OR 2) spend many thousands of dollars to hope for use of one or both front legs; OR 3) surrender to a shelter; OR 4) put her down. We couldn't bear to part with this sweet girl, so we took option (2) and decided to try our luck on fixing both legs. After 2 long and arduous successful surgeries and 3 tough weeks, Millie came home. She had a cast for 4 weeks and spent most of that time with many kind doctors and tech friends nursing her back to health. As you can imagine, it's a 24/7 job of watching her on restricted activity, and she will need physical therapy down the road.

If you can afford to help us in paying off these outstanding bills, we would greatly appreciate it—and any amount will help. We will also be giving 10% of all donations to PAWS Chicago to help their mission of securing pets with their forever homes. We will also give PAWS 100% of any donations above and beyond our goal. We are so happy to have two pets (Maisy and Millie) from PAWS and hope that you can help us with Millie. We feel lucky to have her as part of our family. THANK YOU in advance. Stephanie, Belle, Jonah, Gabriel, Maisy-pup, and Millie......