SAVING COPPER

We come to you asking for help to get Copper a needed surgery to save his life. I rescued Copper from a local family. He was not gaining weight. Unfortunately, they did not have the means to find out why. He was the runt of the litter and the last one left. He was fighting for food with three other large dogs. He would eat so fast, and then he would regurgitate everything within minutes. They could not get him to keep food down. When I went to look at him, he curled up in my arms, basically skin and bones. I couldn't leave without taking him home to save him. I tried for a week to feed him tiny amounts multiple times a day; we tried a mix of soft foods and hard. Nothing seemed to help. Eventually, we decided to go with just rice and boiled chicken; this was worse than feeding him just plain wet food.

FIRST VET APPOINTMENT

At this point, I took him to his first vet visit. I explained the situation to them, and they ran some blood work and other tests. They found he did have a bacterial infection, so we went home with antibiotics to treat this in hopes that this was all it was. Unfortunately, as the weekend went by, he continued to get worse. I called Monday, and the vet asked me to bring him in immediately. They tested him for Parvo; thankfully, this was negative. However, now we were back to square one at finding out what was wrong with him. They kept him overnight and started IVs, and started doing X-rays. They eventually did a barium dye x-ray. This x-ray finally gave us answers.

THE DIAGNOSIS

Copper has what is called Persistent Aortic Arch Esophageal Constriction (PAAEC). In less medical words, part of his heart wraps around his esophagus, restricting the flow of food to the stomach. This constriction is why he can't keep even the smallest bits of food down. So we started feeding him watered-down food via syringe, holding him upright while feeding him. After feeding him, we keep him sitting upright so the food can flow from the esophagus into the stomach. We have had great success with this. However, he is a Huskey/German Shepard mix; he has already doubled in size and is gaining weight. So we will not be able to feed him this way forever.

GOING FORWARD

To give Copper a more normal life, he will need surgery as soon as possible to move the part of the heart wrapped around the esophagus. Due to the rarity of PAAEC, the surgery requires specialists from a more advanced vet hospital. The closest hospital to perform this surgery is four hours away from us. Therefore, I will have to travel and be away from my home and away from work for multiple days while Copper has the surgery and recovers.

FUNDING

Donations will go directly to the vet following Copper's case and to the Vet Hospital that will perform the surgery. My family has been gracious enough to help me with travel expenses and lodging. If you do not wish to donate to Go Fund Me you can also contribute to Coppers account at Broadway Veterinary Clinic at 2340 West Broadway, Idaho Falls Idaho 83402. You can also call and donate to Broadway Veterinary Clinic at 1-208-522-2557. Just be sure to mention that you want the donation to go to Coppers account. 

You can also message me for other donations options. I do have venmo and PayPal.