Help Bert Bounce Back!

A little over a year ago, thanks to the help of my friend Gabby, I drove 13 hours to pick up Bert from a shelter in Delaware. He was skin and bones, with bite marks and scratches all over his body. He was scared, I was scared. But we got in the car and drove to Wisconsin and we both never looked back.

Burton Guster, or Bert for short, is a the craziest and sweetest boy you will ever meet. His two favorite things are food and his mama, in that order. He loves squirrels, bunnies, and drooling on everyones' nice clothes. And anyone who meets him can recognize, he literally is a 55lb baby. All he wants out of life is for someone to hold him and pet him 24/7 and then he's as happy as can be. (As I am typing this, he is currently pawing me in the face because I had the audacity to stop petting him.)

A few months ago, he began limping out of nowhere. After several trips to vets, several tests, and seeking out specialists - we discovered that he has torn not one, but both cruciate ligaments in his knees and dislocated his patellas. I am not a vet, but from our consultations, I am told that this type of injury is similar to a human ACL tear. The cruciate ligament is one of the important ligaments that supports the entire knee and in dogs, it can never heal itself. We are not sure how he managed to pull off the injury of a century, but I have a feeling it has to do with the night he pulled himself out of his collar and chased bunnies around our neighborhood, while I chased him in my pajamas and flip flops.

He is a tough boy and has not let his pain stop him from enjoying life, but unfortunately, he cannot survive off of pain pills forever. The severity of his injury requires both knees to have what is called a TPLO surgery. Without getting into too many details, TPLO surgery ultimately entails sawing off the head of each tibia, flipping them around, and then stabilizing the new bone position with a plate and 6 screws. Essentially making him a robo-dog. Without the surgery, his pain and immobility will only get worse and could prevent him from walking all together.

And in typical Bert fashion, he is ensuring this is about as dramatic as can be. Due to his other health issues, we don't have the luxury of being able to do both knee surgeries at once - so we have to have a separate surgery for each knee. Each surgery will require a minimum 2 day stay at the puppy hospital, 8 weeks of recovery with physical therapy, follow up appointments, and follow up scans. So as you can imagine the costs add up.

In addition to his knee surgeries, the surgeon will also be performing surgery on his nose and throat during his first procedure in order to ensure he is able to survive both long surgeries- no surprise, as bulldogs like to make everything complicated.

This go fund me is set up to help cover some of the cost of his first surgery and his post-op care. As many of you may know, Bert is my baby - so thank you for taking the time to read his story and thank you so much to anyone who is considering donating.