Cover Patch's medical bills

Content warning: upsetting image of a malnourished dog - will place another warning before the image turns up

Hi, my name is Charlotte and a week ago me and my partner rescued my 14 year old childhood dog, Patch from an abusive family member.

I had Patch as a baby, but we sadly had to give him to my grandfather after him and our other dog started fighting about 6 years ago. After looking after my grandad for many years he was then taken in by my grandmother and uncle when he passed.

Since this point, Patch was neglected for years, he went from a healthy body to morbidly obese in the span of a few months, only to then be malnourished to the point that you could see his ribs. If my mum hadn't done a welfare check on my uncle after he stopped replying to anyone for a month, the vet said he was days away from passing away from starvation.

CW: upsetting image

•

•

•

It was at this point I promised to take my boy out of that environment, but at the time I lived in student accommodation and couldn't have pets. My mum had cats and couldn't keep him long term either, and due to his age we couldn't get anyone to foster him while I got a home. What followed was a year of my mum video calling my uncle daily to watch him feed Patch, as it was the only way we could ensure he was fed. Thankfully doing this helped him get more weight on him, but even now he is underweight by a few pounds a year on.

Last week, me and my partner finally got a house that allowed pets, and we immediately moved to bring him to us so he could live out his golden years in peace and around love and care. At this point, patch hadn't been to the vet in a year, so we took him for a full checkup to cover our bases.

We then found out by the vet that Patch has a severe mouth disease, his poor teeth are completely rotten inside and out and are causing him alot of discomfort, preventing him from eating and playing his favourite game, tug. We have been advised this was entirely preventable if he was actually looked after properly, and even if my uncle had bothered to take him to a vet sooner it wouldn't be nearly as severe.

We have a date scheduled in September to take him in and have blood work done, alongside a procedure to remove his teeth and then an x-ray to see how far the damage goes. In addition we are also doing a biopsy on a lump on his leg to make sure the little man doesn't have cancer.

The vet said the prognosis is good, he is happy and energetic and the procedure will improve his quality of life tenfold for the years he has left, so we agreed in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately these vet bills are much higher than we anticipated, a bit over £2000 is the quote if Patch ends up needing the max amount of work. We are trying to have the vet agree to a payment plan, but even with that in place it'll be at least £100 a month to pay back and thats if they will allow us 2 years to pay it back, worst case it will be around £200/£250 a month which is too much for us to afford as uni graduates who just got jobs and used up our savings to get a house in London.

We are kindly asking for anyone willing to donate to help put some money down to start paying off this bill, and any extra will go right into a savings account to help pay for any follow up procedures as we help our baby get back to being a healthy boy.

This dog is my world and my regret is that I couldn't save him sooner, it would mean everything to me if I could help him not be in pain for his last few years, even if it's not for long.

Thank you for reading