Short story: My sweet rescue poodle Nyx gave himself an accidental horrific injury and is receiving excellent, long-term, expensive care at the University of Minnesota Vet Hospital. Friends have asked how they can help, so here we are. His full medical journey follows below.

Nyx's story: Nyx was born into Healing Hearts Rescue to a mom that smuggled a belly full of babies out of a breeding program. In fact he was born on my (Robin's) bed. After whelping over 100 pups in rescue, Nyx was the first that tempted me to foster fail. And fail I did. He's been a perfect foster brother to dozens of others since, as well as the heart of our family and my son's best buddy. Both the resident dogs that were here for his birth have crossed the rainbow bridge since, so we're even more determined to fight for Nyx.

Long story: On October 16th I let our two dogs out as usual, and they ran their zoomies as usual. About 90 seconds later, I heard a noise I never want to hear again, and Nyx came around the garage trailing something from his belly. It was not, as I assumed, something stuck to him, but in fact, the tatters of what used to be the skin of his chest and belly.

One panicked scream to Rob, a quick realization we didn't have the bandaging needed to even begin to approach this, and several unanswered calls to the emergency vet later, we pulled into Como Emergency Animal Hospital for them to take one glance and say we can't handle this, off to the U with you (they did put on a much more effective dressing for the journey and called to let them know we were inbound). Jump ahead 6 hours and we were being discharged with a mummy-wrapped, Frankenstein poodle that the staff decided (as we didn't at the time know the mechanism of injury) must have been attacked by a werewolf. The lead tech said that when they got the report about a "degloving of the thorax," they suspected some dramatic license, but when they unwrapped him under sedation, if anything, it was undersold. The next morning we discovered his attacker. He had caught himself on the blunt hook of a clothesline pole that was lying against our garage while running full speed, leading to the abovementioned degloving.

The procedure to put him back together took the team 2.5 hours of needlework, a JP drain, and a lovely pink compression vest. This lasted less than a day before it was obvious that the incision was dehiscing, the drain wasn't working, and there was infection happening. Back to the ER, where they decided they were out of their depth and scheduled us with the surgical team the next day.

After meeting the surgeons, we got the news that the wound was indeed infected, the skin flaps were not viable, and my little poodle boy had to go in for another surgery which would leave him with an open (clean) wound and require daily wound care and dressing changes at the surgical clinic. Once he'd fought the infection and had healthy tissue to work with, they planned to close him up, provided he has enough skin left. This was on Oct 18th.

Between then and October 29th we made 6 visits for bandage changes, and got the news that Nyx was growing several multiple drug resistant organisms. After changing up the antibiotics and working to keep my not quite 2 year old poodle quiet and still for over a week, it was decided he was a candidate to clos the wound again. This was accomplished through a surgery that brought a flap of healthy skin forward to cover the area that was left after stretching the remaining skin. He came home with, again, a drain in place and high hopes.

This lasted, again, about 24 hours, when he again dehisced. Again we started open wound management and dressing changes, 6 of them between 10/31 and 11/7. Which brings us to today and another plan.

With the progress made in the health of the wound bed, the surgical team believes Nyx is a good candidate for a wound vacuum treatment, and another shot at closing his wound. This is a significant expense, which the Surgical team has generously offered to assist us with, but looks to be the best shot at getting us to an intact dog. As of 11/7 we are over $11,000 in to this adventure, even before the wound vac, with no end in sight. But for the scrappy little poodle that wags his tail and gives kisses even to the folks holding him down during bandage changes, we simply can't stop. And so we're asking for your help. We understand that this is a particularly difficult time for many, but any amount helps, and if you cannot contribute financially, please share. Thank you.