Hello,

What I thought was a cute little surprise for my dog baby turned out to be an emotional nightmare for my kids and I. I don't think my children ever been so scared and worried before.

On Feb 22nd, while grocery shopping at Walmart, I picked up a bone treat for my dog child, Zeus. I selected O'Roy's smoked bone. Then everything went downhill from there.

The next day, he didn't eat his breakfast, which for my highly food-motivated dog is a little weird. That afternoon, he threw up, and there were pieces of bone in it. Eventually, he ate the breakfast that had been left. Shortly after, he threw up all his food, and once again, there was bone in it. So off to the vet for us. There we discovered an obstruction in his stomach from the O'Roy's bone. It had splintered. That evening, he had surgery to remove the obstruction. Thank goodness we sought care immediately, and the obstruction was still in the stomach. Once an obstruction moves to the intestines, the probability of complications goes up.

The surgery went smoothly, but there was one complication. A couple of days later, he had thrown up his food and needed to be rushed back to the ER for an ultrasound and X-rays. It turned out to be an upset stomach.

The primary vet visit was $700, and the ER visits were around $7800. I was able to get CareCredit; however, it's an additional monthly bill I'm currently not able to really afford. With the cost of living these days and my two human children, it gets hard sometimes. Plus, on top of all this, Zeus has an autoimmune disease in his left eye. I was just celebrating at his last appointment at Eye Care for Animals on 2/19 that we could now push his visit to every six months. For the last two years, we have been going every 2 to 3 months.

My family will be highly grateful for any and all donations. If there are any leftover funds, we will donate them to the ER that performed his surgery, VEG ER for Pets in Pikesville, MD. No pet family or strays should be denied care for the lack of funds.