Earl needs a little help!
Donation protected
Hi #teamearl! The time has finally come where we have begun the process of trying to medically fix all that we can in order to ensure Earl has the best chances at a "normal", long, fun filled life. You can follow Earl's journey and see lots of Earl spam on his Instagram @Earls_bucket_list
BELOW IS AN OVERVIEW OF EARL'S STORY:
Let’s see where to begin. Earl was surrendered to a shelter at 4 weeks old as a “stray”. The shelter immediately contacted a cleft palate rescue (Cleft Pup Brigade in Penn Valley, CA) as Earl looked to have a hole in the roof of his mouth. He was 4 lbs and barely hanging on. Not holding down anything, not even fluids. Once he got to the rescue, he was immediately brought into the ER. It was determined that he had a broken jaw and it was so badly infected, an abscess had created the hole in the roof of his mouth. Rachele, the founder of Cleft Pup Brigade, nursed him back to health with hourly syringe feeding, ICU care and lots of TLC. Once he was stable and able to eat on his own, at 9 weeks, she had him thoroughly checked out. By this time it was evident he had some other issues. The biggest being a hypoplastic trachea; basically the rings weren’t formed very strongly in his trachea causing it to partially collapse and is only about 20% of the size it should be. He also has some nasal deformities from whatever blunt force broke his jaw (and also caused a collapsed nasiolacrimal- tear- duct). He also has a congenital issue involving under developed hip sockets. Rachele was told his life would be full of suffering and she should humanely euthanize him. She thought for a few days over that and decided she couldn’t. His quality of life was not bad; if it happened to get worse we could revisit that avenue. At that point she reached out for a long term hospice foster. Earl’s prognosis was not for more than 3/4 months. That’s when my son and I took him in, at 10 weeks old. It’s true, Earl lives a sheltered life, but he truly doesn’t know his life is different. We do have to shorten his play times (10-15 minutes and then he needs to rest to catch his breath and help cool his body down), but he gets to experience normal puppy things! The biggest challenge we face is Earl’s reoccurring episodes of aspiration pneumonia - we have experienced this scary illness 8 times already in his short life! We take a lot of precautions (we feed him multiple small meals a day so his tummy digests faster, he drinks water out of a special bottle for dogs with cleft palettes, he sleeps at an incline, limited exercise, nebulizer treatments everyday) but he continues to aspirate on his salvia in his sleep. Each time, he spends a day at the hospital in an oxygen chamber, hooked up to fluids and medications. It takes 2-3 weeks to recover fully, but only about 48-72 hrs for him to want to start being playful again.
MEDICAL PROCEDURES THAT WE NEED A LITTLE HELP WITH:
We have an appt on Aug 5th at UC Davis to get a full CT scan done so they can come up with a surgical plan. While he is under anesthesia for the scan, they will be removing 1-2 teeth in order to free up some soft tissue in his mouth that they will use to stretch over the cleft to close up the hole at a later date. So far, Earl has not been stable enough to be put under anesthesia, so this is a very big, scary deal! Once he heals up from the tooth extractions, he will go in for a second, more extensive and dangerous surgery. Assuming his thoracic system tolerates the anesthesia from the first surgery, he will then undergo a multiple hour, double procedure to repair the cleft palate and also to trim the elongated soft palate. He will then spend 24 hours in the ICU under oxygen at UC Davis. These procedures combined are very risky, but it is the overall consensus from Earl's medical team (his GP, ER dr and also the surgery team at UC Davis) that if they are not done, Earl will not live very long with his continued cases of aspiration pneumonia.
Dr. Boaz Arzi, who will spear head Earl's surgeries, is known for his successful outcomes and fixing the hard cases that have stumped other veterinarians; the "unfixable".
Between the CT scan and the three procedures, the estimated cost is between $6400-$10,300. I have saved up about 75% of the estimated cost and just need a little help in covering the rest. I TRULY APPRECIATE ANY HELP!
Earl lives a very happy life and is very very loved. You can follow his journey on Instagram @earls_bucket_list or catch his story on The Dodo at:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pFsb_Z2gWBc
Here is a story one of our local news channels just ran on Earl last week of him celebrating his 1st birthday:
https://www.kion546.com/news/earl-the-bucket-list-dog-defies-odds-and-celebrates-1st-birthday/1087631519
BELOW IS AN OVERVIEW OF EARL'S STORY:
Let’s see where to begin. Earl was surrendered to a shelter at 4 weeks old as a “stray”. The shelter immediately contacted a cleft palate rescue (Cleft Pup Brigade in Penn Valley, CA) as Earl looked to have a hole in the roof of his mouth. He was 4 lbs and barely hanging on. Not holding down anything, not even fluids. Once he got to the rescue, he was immediately brought into the ER. It was determined that he had a broken jaw and it was so badly infected, an abscess had created the hole in the roof of his mouth. Rachele, the founder of Cleft Pup Brigade, nursed him back to health with hourly syringe feeding, ICU care and lots of TLC. Once he was stable and able to eat on his own, at 9 weeks, she had him thoroughly checked out. By this time it was evident he had some other issues. The biggest being a hypoplastic trachea; basically the rings weren’t formed very strongly in his trachea causing it to partially collapse and is only about 20% of the size it should be. He also has some nasal deformities from whatever blunt force broke his jaw (and also caused a collapsed nasiolacrimal- tear- duct). He also has a congenital issue involving under developed hip sockets. Rachele was told his life would be full of suffering and she should humanely euthanize him. She thought for a few days over that and decided she couldn’t. His quality of life was not bad; if it happened to get worse we could revisit that avenue. At that point she reached out for a long term hospice foster. Earl’s prognosis was not for more than 3/4 months. That’s when my son and I took him in, at 10 weeks old. It’s true, Earl lives a sheltered life, but he truly doesn’t know his life is different. We do have to shorten his play times (10-15 minutes and then he needs to rest to catch his breath and help cool his body down), but he gets to experience normal puppy things! The biggest challenge we face is Earl’s reoccurring episodes of aspiration pneumonia - we have experienced this scary illness 8 times already in his short life! We take a lot of precautions (we feed him multiple small meals a day so his tummy digests faster, he drinks water out of a special bottle for dogs with cleft palettes, he sleeps at an incline, limited exercise, nebulizer treatments everyday) but he continues to aspirate on his salvia in his sleep. Each time, he spends a day at the hospital in an oxygen chamber, hooked up to fluids and medications. It takes 2-3 weeks to recover fully, but only about 48-72 hrs for him to want to start being playful again.
MEDICAL PROCEDURES THAT WE NEED A LITTLE HELP WITH:
We have an appt on Aug 5th at UC Davis to get a full CT scan done so they can come up with a surgical plan. While he is under anesthesia for the scan, they will be removing 1-2 teeth in order to free up some soft tissue in his mouth that they will use to stretch over the cleft to close up the hole at a later date. So far, Earl has not been stable enough to be put under anesthesia, so this is a very big, scary deal! Once he heals up from the tooth extractions, he will go in for a second, more extensive and dangerous surgery. Assuming his thoracic system tolerates the anesthesia from the first surgery, he will then undergo a multiple hour, double procedure to repair the cleft palate and also to trim the elongated soft palate. He will then spend 24 hours in the ICU under oxygen at UC Davis. These procedures combined are very risky, but it is the overall consensus from Earl's medical team (his GP, ER dr and also the surgery team at UC Davis) that if they are not done, Earl will not live very long with his continued cases of aspiration pneumonia.
Dr. Boaz Arzi, who will spear head Earl's surgeries, is known for his successful outcomes and fixing the hard cases that have stumped other veterinarians; the "unfixable".
Between the CT scan and the three procedures, the estimated cost is between $6400-$10,300. I have saved up about 75% of the estimated cost and just need a little help in covering the rest. I TRULY APPRECIATE ANY HELP!
Earl lives a very happy life and is very very loved. You can follow his journey on Instagram @earls_bucket_list or catch his story on The Dodo at:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pFsb_Z2gWBc
Here is a story one of our local news channels just ran on Earl last week of him celebrating his 1st birthday:
https://www.kion546.com/news/earl-the-bucket-list-dog-defies-odds-and-celebrates-1st-birthday/1087631519
Organizer
Crystal Cook
Organizer
Felton, CA