Saving Lily's leg

Tragedy struck 8:35pm 5th April when Lily, the 2 year old Kelpie sheep dog, was hit by a car while out working. Lily, trying to be one step ahead and helpful, made a dash to cross the road for the next site despite the calls to stop. Lily suffered a very badly broken front leg with the bone protruding the skin and knock to the head. The impact was such that the car has a broken headlight and cracked panel. The family farm is near the country town of Kerang. The break to Lily’s leg was too severe for the local vet to operate on and so at first light this morning Lily’s beloved owner and his granddaughter collected her under sedation and transported her to Bendigo. Upon arrival in Bendigo they were told that because it was outside the twelve hour window it was now an operation for a highly skilled specialist. They have had to transport her to Melbourne. They have arrived in Melbourne as of 1:30 pm 6th April and at the time of writing this were keeping Lily comfortable and reminding her how special she is to them while awaiting surgery.
We have put this page together on behalf of our elderly father, father in-law, husband, grandpa. He means the world to us and we are all so very distressed watching him go through this ordeal. We are all trying to help financially as much as we can, but are falling well short of the expected total.
Lily quickly became a loving, loyal working companion for my father. My brother had acquired her for our father after an earlier tragic event. His best friend, 12 year old four legged Mac was killed as a result of illegal baiting. Mac had been my father’s closet friend, companion and comfort during some extremely tough times including the 2003 – 2011 drought and the 2011 devastating floods. Mac had stopped being the main working dog on the farm but he never stopped being the most important thing in my father’s day to day farming life. Mac had a companion, Sam, a pup in training, who died also as a result of the poison. The DPI were not able to find the culprit.
Lily in her vibrant two years has become vital to my father in every way. Lily gives him joy, comfort, companionship and watches over him when he is in isolated areas of the farm without mobile coverage or human company. As such there is no question that my father would do anything other than give his special girl every medical assistance and help he can.
My father has not yet retired from farm life. Despite being in his 80s he still lives and works on the farm. Lily was injured while they were out monitoring and adjusting the irrigation for the farm. This has become an onerous and almost constant job as the drought continues to bite hard. The expense the drought has caused on the land simply to feed and water stock and keep them healthy means there are no reserve funds to fall back on to help Lily out.
We are raising the funds to help with the initial veterinary bill ($6000), but are mindful that this is the starting point and these bills may escalate. The bills are being incurred now and we will need to start making payments within a week. We are speaking to the Veterinary Hospital about a full payment plan.
My family would be so very grateful to anyone who can help, no matter the size of donation, every bit will help. We are calling in all family favours as it is to help with transport and accommodation given Lily will be more than 300 kms away from the farm while she is with the vet. If we can raise enough to cover the medical expenses it would be such a relief to the entire family, especially my father, so he can concentrate on helping his best friend and spend less time worrying about how he will pay the bills.