Our beautiful dog Cobweb is in urgent need of surgery. Unfortunately, the insurance is refusing to pay out and so we have no choice but to reach out for help!

About Cobweb

Cobweb is a young rescue saluki/whippet cross who was found straying, underweight and mistreated. She was taken to a pound and there was on death row- about to be euthanised before she was taken in by Kerry Greyhounds Rescue. Unfortunately, sighthounds are often used for blood sports, treated cruelly and dumped when they aren’t good enough, so we can only guess at how hard her short life has been. She is covered in scars and is very timid so this indicates people have not always been kind to her. Despite this, she is the most wonderful, loving and gentle dog.

We adopted her around 2 months ago as a companion for our other rescue saluki, Puca, who absolutely adores his little sister despite hating most other dogs and being nearly 10! They love zooming around the garden together and cuddling on the sofa at night. She is keeping her grumpy old brother young.

Cobweb is genuinely the most affectionate dog you could imagine- you don’t even have to be sat down for her to try and climb into your lap for a cuddle- she just wants to love you!

We want to give her a long and happy life and the idea that this might not be possible is heartbreaking.

The Surgery

When we first bought Cobweb home, we noticed that she had a small lump under her jaw. The vet told us this was nothing to worry about- probably an infected saliva gland or lymph node and it would go away. Over the past week, we have noticed that Cobweb has lost weight and the lump has grown, so we took her back to get it checked. The vet was stumped- she said she had never seen anything like it before in that location. Because the lump is hard, it is more likely that it may be cancer- and the location will eventually impact her ability to eat and breathe so it needs removing ASAP. Whilst examining her, she also noticed that Cobweb has an extremely rotten and infected tooth, right at the back of her mouth. The vet tells us this is very unusual in such a young, healthy dog and was likely caused by some trauma to the mouth- possibly from being mistreated by the same person who abandoned her. It’s possible the lump could be caused by the same thing but they won’t know for sure until they remove both. These are both incredibly unusual things for such a young dog to have wrong with them, and we are devastated that our new pet is so poorly. Cobweb has had to be booked in for urgent surgery to remove the tooth ASAP as it is infected and could cause real issues if left any longer. The lump will have to be removed at a later date after she has recovered from the tooth extraction, but also needs to come out ASAP due to the rate at which it is growing.

The Cost

The expected cost for the procedures is around £2000 for removal of the tooth and the lump. This is only an estimate, and the cost will rise when factoring in aftercare, drugs, checkups and sending the lump off for biopsy to check it isn’t cancerous. We have already paid about £500 out of pocket in vet visits and treatments to try and find out the cause of the issue. Usually, we would use savings, overdrafts or credit cards to pay for an emergency like this- but the cost of living has made things harder for everyone, us included. My husband Sam recently switched jobs, and when he moved £2000 was taken off his final wage because he received a bonus of the same amount whilst he was working there and unbeknown to him, if you left the company within 18 months of receiving this bonus you have to pay it back. This has left us severely out of pocket, and we’ve been lucky that we’ve just been able to keep afloat despite this. Unfortunately, this has left us with no money to pay for unexpected vet bills that we assumed our expensive pet insurance would cover. The insurance is claiming that these issues are pre existing and were caused by something happening prior to Cobweb being insured with them, and so they will not pay out. Her first procedure is on the 30th of September which is fast approaching- with us having no way of paying for it.

£3000 is a rough estimate of how much we expect to pay for everything in total, but any amount will help massively towards our goal of getting Cobweb healthy and enabling her to live the long and happy life she deserves after such a tragic start.

Thank you for reading

Beth, Sam

Cobweb and Puca