Help to pay for Bruceys's double hip replacment

Update 30/06/2020

****** Brucey Is 10 weeks post op and doing well, very well infact. The current situation is building up the severe muscle mass that he lost, we are doing this through a combination of exercises and also hydrotherapy. Unfortunately the hydro sessions come at a cost of £60 each and we are running out of money to fund these. Please keep on helping us if you can as the hydrotherapy is the key to completing bruceys rehab and getting him back to a normal way of life.  Also strong rear muscles will prevent the Hip dislocating again and also help against breaking bones etc which is a serious risk due to him being a heavy dog combined with very little muscle. Everything helps donating and sharing. Thank you as always 
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Brucey is our 7 month old Bernese mountain dog puppy, he arrived with us in May this year after losing our 8 year old Bernese Girl Bella to a spinal condition earlier this year. Brucey helped us deal with pain of losing Bella but unfortunately after just 2 weeks he developed a problem with his eye which required him to go for surgery at just 4 months old to correct the problem, sadly the surgery did not fully correct the issue and he went for further surgery a few weeks back to further correct the problem. He is recovering well and we hope he will make a full recovery from this. Brucey loves to go on walks, especially down to our local beach where hes already quite well known by the other dogs and there walkers, just a typical puppy running around with the other dogs regardless of there size, sometimes forgetting he is a growing 30 kg pup and crashing into other people and there smaller dogs! however around 4-5 weeks ago we Brucey started walking with a very unusual gait, he would walk with a sway and also kick his hind legs out to the side, more worrying though he started struggling to rise after lying down and arch his back once standing but walk very unsteadily for a few moments until he regained his composure. 


He appeared very stiff and sore after lying for a period of time or after walks. We had always been careful not to over exercise him and hes never been allowed to climb our stairs so we could not really think of any reason why this would be happening. We hoped it may have passed quickly but after a 2 weeks we felt it was getting worse and made an appointment with the vets. Our worst fears were confirmed quickly as the examining vet could feel a subtle clunk whilst extending his hind legs and referred us to orthopaedic vet to examine him further, Brucey was examined yesterday by the specialist and heart breakingly diagnosed Brucey with both luxating patella in both legs, but more worryingly severe hip dysplasia in both hips.  Brucey was x-rayed today and his hips are severely out of place, one the hips is decribed as almost floating out of the socket. The vet said today its the worse case of hip dysplasia she has ever seen. 

Brucey will require a double hip replacement and this will need to be done at 9 months or ultimately he will not be able to walk as he gets older and heavier. Both hips will be replaced with 6 weeks between the operations. The surgeon did not believe that Brucey would be a good candidate for TPO surgery as the dysplasia is so severe. Brucey is now limited to on lead walks only for 15 minutes 3 times a day, This is heartbreaking for an energetic 7 month old puppy to not be able to run and play with all the other dogs at the beach etc.

He loves playing tug of war in our garden with us and runs around after our 3 year old grandson, we now have to also limit all of this. It is an unbelievably cruel condition and we simply cannot explain to our beautiful boy why he cant run of his lead or why he cant run around our garden and chase his toys etc. He is also now on pain relief medication indefinitely until we can arrange for the surgery. Sadly being a large breed dog he is at the top end of the scale when it comes to the surgery cost, we are insured and the insurance company have been great so far but there annual benefit per condition if £3000 and part of that has already gone due to xrays and specialists fees etc. The cost of the double hip replacement is £13000. We can do one hip this year and one next year which means we will need to find around £6000 to do that however this will mean Brucey will have to suffer with one bad hip for the rest of this year, therefore if we can raise around £10000 we will be able to get Both Bruceys hips done in the next 3-6 months. Hes a beautiful boy and deserves to be pain free and able to play and run around without pain. I hope you can help us raise the money and we thank you in advance if you can, if you cant donate then even just passing this story on will be a great help. Thanks for reading