Emily Vourlides & Luka

I am reaching out to the community to ask for help with Luka, an 18 month old purpose bred sled dog. Luka is owned and loved by Emily Vourlides. Emily is a long standing and very active member of the sled dog community, founding QLD Sled Dog Club SDRQ. She has sacrificed many, many hours of her own time and sometimes at her own financial expense over the years, to ensure that QLD has a healthy sled dog community with a full events calendar. She is a selfless person who would never ask for help, so I am doing it for her and hoping I will get the support of others.

Luka has been seemingly healthy until late last week (25/05/2023) when he started to appear a little off colour. He didn't want to eat, which was unusual and Emily found mouth ulcers on the inside of his lips. She took him to the vet where he was thought to have eaten something he shouldn't, and was prescribed Metacam for the ulcers, then sent home. The following day he showed no improvement and was admitted to a 24-hour vet in QLD. Over the weekend he has crashed with no explanation (the vets are working feverishly to try and diagnose his illness), he is going into renal failure and now has fluid on his lungs. We don't know if he is going to make it and are in shock that a healthy dog, with a full life ahead of him, could decline so rapidly and unexpectedly. For those who may not know, Emily lost another young dog, called Kyzer, just before Luka came into her life, to a rare form of neonatal kidney cancer (it means he was born with it - likely not genetic - and extremely unlucky). Emily fought for 2 years trying to keep Kyzer healthy, but he lost his battle, and in the meantime she didn't ask for help and got into financial debt trying to give him the best life she could. She has only recently finished paying off his vet bills and I cannot watch her potentially lose another young dog AND be in debt again. So please help if you can. Emily is the last person who deserves to be going through this. Thank you.