Search and Rescue canine needs veterinary care

Hi I'm Mary, and I train and deploy search and rescue dog Inca. I'm fundraising to give Inca the two knee surgeries she needs to be pain-free and possibly be able to continue to deploy a little while longer before settling into a well-earned retirement.

Inca is an 8.5-year-old Belgian Malinois who has served our community (used loosely - she's been all over the United States) her entire life. She and I began our partnership when she was just 7 weeks old, and I picked her out of a litter in Marysville, CA, to be my working K9 partner. She and I trained for a year before we passed our certification tests and became operational as a team. Her first deployment was the Butte Fire in Calaveras County, CA, and we worked many of the subsequent massive wildfires together.

Inca has had an amazing career finding homicide victims and people who have drowned. She has helped recover people who drowned in Lake Tahoe, many rivers, and numerous other reservoirs and lakes. She has a thousand hard miles on her, and being the breed she is with the drive and heart she has, Inca has done a job on her body.

Inca's service to the lost and missing aside, she is known and loved by pretty much everyone who meets her. She is a happy, people-loving dog, and when we travel for training or deployments, it seems the people sitting next to us on planes always want their picture taken with her. She has brought so much to so many over the years.

I want to be able to give her the pain relief and mobility she deserves and hope the community might give a little tiny bit back to her. She may need physical therapy for most of her life, certainly for many months afterward. The orthopedic vets said she has an excellent prognosis to return to work because she is in such good condition. While that would be great, I want to be completely transparent that that is not my primary goal - my primary goal is to eliminate the pain and give her comfort. If she can work from a boat post-surgery, I'll see about continuing to deploy her.

The cost estimate for the surgery alone is $10k and there is after-care on top of that. I wish I could share more details on what Inca has done for families of the lost and missing. Thank you for helping give her the veterinary care she needs and truly has earned.