Let’s jump right in.

Rza is an adorable pup that rocks one blue eye and brings a lot of joy as my sister’s current pup partner in crime and a very important member of our family unit. Rza was the first dog that my son ever bonded to, just a puppy and a baby learning the ropes together (adorable, right?). Rza became instant best friends with my puppy Bosco, and I mean BEST FRIENDS, these pals romp, cuddle and play for literally 10 hours at a time. Rza is full of love and loyalty, most recently seen when she stationed herself at our mothers’ feet and was unwavering in her desire to not move until our mother took her last breath (cue moving background music). Not everyone understands that special something that a pet friend brings to internal wellbeing, stability, and mental health. For those of you who do, you will understand the weight of me saying that right now, this family needs her to be okay. In a time of constant chaos for us recently, our hearts needs this to not be another thing.

Recently Rza was part of a freak accident while running and doing all the puppy things on the Washington coast. In a spot where cars can drive on the beach she was run over by a car. Rza sustained serious injuries after both the front and back tires passed over her sweet puppy body. She was smooshed from head to toe and Margaux was faced with the harrowing task of finding emergency animal services in a remote area on a Saturday. Margaux did the damn thing and was able to get Rza to a hospital and stabilized. Wheeling and dealing and checking under the couch cushions, Margaux was able to get Rza through surgery to put her eye back in place (woof), body scans, medications, and emergency care.

While recovering, Margaux noticed something else. Her sweet puppy could no longer wag her tail. A puppy who cannot wag its tail is a very, very sad situation. More than the loss of whimsy, it was clear that her tail was causing her a lot of pain. Turns out the initial costly body scans were not done 100% correctly, meaning that the whole body was scanned up to the point of her tail. Bummer. Because after paying for even more costly (and unnecessary if they had been done correctly the first time) body scans, it was found that Rza’s tail was dislocated from her spinal cord, and it needs to be removed.

Spine is the magic word. That elevated this from an amputation to a specialty surgery (apparently making sure she can walk, and function is important? Makes sense). That means that wheeling and dealing to get her stable and put back together could potentially all be for nothing, as if not corrected sooner than later it can result in significant spinal cord damage, infection, and unbearable pain. At this point, we have come to far, she has been our smooshed head, dud tail miracle and we cannot turn back now.

Anybody who knows Margaux knows that this will make her uncomfortable. She is usually in the helper position, not the helped one. I can attest to the fact that she will do anything she can to help another person. Just last week she noticed someone sleeping near the sidewalk in front of her home, to which she went inside and made them a full proper breakfast and left it for them. She returned home to a note of sincere gratitude. She is 100% that bitch and so I am eager to do anything I can to promote helping being tossed her direction. Asking for help is hard, especially when times are tough all around. This timing couldn’t be worse given the reality that we are just coming back from weeks of time off and lost work due to our mothers unexpected illness and passing. Any help people could provide, even if it is sharing this story with others would be great (I am not a fundraiser and have like 4 followers on social media, so if the popular girls in the back could help some sisters out, it would be golden). I can assure you that we will pass it on and do our part to diligently help others as we move forward whenever we can, because we do live a life that embodies community and kindness.

Although her tail will not be able to wag on- you can help us get her to wag her tail in her heart again.