Save Our Sausage

We adopted King Billy from Ryedale Dog Rescue back in June 2017. He’s a gorgeous 5 year old long haired miniature Dachshund. We fell in love with him from day 1. Billy lives in Scarborough with myself (Luci), my wife Amy and our other dog Ralphie. On Wednesday 2nd October we noticed that Billy had started to look a little under the weather and wasn’t himself, we called the emergency vet who advised us to take Billy in to our registered vet first thing in the morning. We took Billy to see our Vet John at Companion Care Scarborough, who’s amazing! He said that Billy was showing signs of Intervertebral Disc Disease (IVDD) which is a common health problem in Dachshunds. Billy could still walk but with a little bit of a wobble, so a range of medication was prescribed and we had everything crossed that with rest and the medication he would be fine.....! 48 hours had passed and we thought King Billy was out of the woods but he got up out of his bed and started to drag his legs behind him. We took him straight to John and by this time he had lost total mobility of his hind legs. We had two options, a trip up to Newcastle for an MRI scan and an emergency operation on his spine and then the worst possible option which we didn’t even consider. We took Billy straight up to Newcastle to find out that one of his discs had burst which had then bruised his spinal cord so the operation needed to be performed ASAP for any chance of success. Billy’s first round of medication was £400 which made for an expensive morning but anything to make him better. However, at Newcastle we learned that if we had any chance of keeping Billy with us he would need this MRI and spine surgery but the snag was it would cost a lot of money. £6,000 to be exact. There was no question we’d go ahead but unfortunately as we were unable to insure Billy, this means we are completely liable for all costs....but we quite simply don’t have the money, the vets have been great and have agreed a payment over the next 12 months but that’s still way more than we can afford despite us both working full time. So, we are hoping to appeal to our friends, family, neighbours and dog lovers alike to help us a little with costs for King Billy’s life saving treatment. We don’t like to ask but we need some help! Please, please if you can help with any donations we’d be forever grateful. Lots of love Luci, Amy, Ralphie and King Billy x