Maki's Medical Bills

Hi, I'm Bryony, and I have the incredible privilege of being the dog mum to Maki (Futomaki for long), our absolutely lovely 5 year old puglet. His favourite things are having his ears fussed and snoozing on the sofa. Sadly, Maki's unfortunately been through the wringer a bit recently.

In April, I noticed Maki had a strange lump growing on his bottom lip, and it seemed to be bothering him. Naturally, I booked him into the vets (a new one as we've moved house) as soon as I could, and they advised that it'd not only be best to have surgery, but to also run some tests on the lump, as they were worried it was something bad.

Maki came out of surgery successfully and is in recovery. They took the lump, and also a little face mole, too, as they were worried about him scratching it off while he was healing.

However, while he was out, they checked his teeth. And, over the course of several hours, they then had to take out NINETEEN (yes, 19) of his teeth. The vet (at his new clinic) revealed he's had severe gum disease and tooth decay, likely going back a couple of years. However, over the last 2 years, he has had at least 3 checkups at his old vets, where we paid a premium for them to do dental, and NOT ONCE did they say he has had any dental problems. The last two times we went, I had mentioned that (while he didn't appear to be in any pain and was still very eager on his food) his breath was stinky, and they said "oh it's his diet" so we stopped his salmon kibble, and "oh he's just a dog and their breath smells".

Clearly, this was not the case.

We are currently in ongoing discussions with his old vets clinic, as they have since agreed to negligence, but, as with most instances like this, they're dragging their feet, and this obviously isn't the only issue we've got.

Maki's lump was also confirmed as suspicious and has required further testing. Several nerve-wracking weeks and two sets of testing later, it was confirmed that the lump was showing cancerous signs. Thankfully, the surgery appears to have excised the whole lump, and this should now mean he is cancer free. We are now going to be monitoring this, and checking frequently for any new lumps and bumps.

As you can imagine, our poor bubbly boy has been to the vets more times than he'd ever like to in the last month, and has been poked and prodded in all sorts of ways.

Unfortunately, this debacle has racked up quite a substantial amount in vets fees and debt. While he is insured, because of the excessive surprise dental work he also endured, the insurance company won't pay out for it in full (as it's not classed as emergency dental - though I fail to see how 19 teeth out in one day don't count as an emergency).

Any help you could give us would be absolutely incredible. We love our boy so much, and he has been so brave through it all. He deserves the world, and we've been trying desperately to make sure he feels so loved and cuddled. Any support you can spare would be very much appreciated, as this has been quite a substantial hit to us, and we want to make sure we're able to keep our beautiful (and now very gummy) boy feeling as comfortable and cared for as possible.

Thank you for reading!