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On Wednesday September 1, I took my dog Mona out for her afternoon walk just like any other day. As we were walking past a cemetery, a large aggressive rottweiler came running at us from within the cemetery. The dog was not on a leash and his owners were off in the distance, not trying to control their dog.

Within seconds this dog began viciously attacking Mona, biting her by the bottom and thrashing her about. The dogs owners could not get him off Mona until maybe 5 minutes into the attack. Once the dog let go, I saw the damage he did to her. Starting from right before her tail, her flesh and tail were hanging down behind her and her abdomen was mutilated. Blood was pouring everywhere. The rottweiler owners left the scene immediately and I picked up Mona and ran back home.

I immediately took her to VCA Emergency Animal Hospital in San Diego and they stabilized her and took an x-ray. Thankfully it seems like the dog missed puncturing any vital organs and nerves but that is yet to be 100% confirmed. Mona will be hospitalized for various days, be given pain medication and medicine to prevent infection, and undergo procedures to clean her severe wound and prep it for surgery.

The vet described her wound as being a single wound because despite the multiple teeth marks and messy gore, the wound goes all the way through her back to her abdomen at a certain spot.

For Mona's first night at the hospital, I've paid $2685.48, which covered her pain meds, x ray, blood work, and flushing out her wound. VCA Emergency Animal Hospital does not have a payment plan but has a medical credit card available, which I applied for but was only granted $2000 and used it on the bill tonight. The vet's plan is to clean out the would tonight, hopefully have surgery tomorrow as long as the wound looks ready to close (ie free of debris, not infected), and from there Mona will need to stay a few more days to make sure her surgery went well. The vet estimated I could end up paying $8000 but I'll have a better estimate in the morning when the surgeon arrives.

This has been a very traumatic experience for both Mona and I. I pray that she pulls through and I want to do everything I can to help her survive because she has always been there for me in my worst struggles. This past year has been the hardest most painful year of my life. I was diagnosed with a stroke resulting from covid complications in November 2020 and in addition to learning how to cope with that, my other dog of 5 years disappeared while I wasn't home two months ago. I've been searching non stop for my dog and have not had any luck, and now to have Mona be savagely attacked while I was walking her, I just don't know how to cope anymore with one tragedy after another.

Please help me get Mona back to health and back to the sweet smiling dog that she is