Walter's Emergency Expenses

Hello everyone, meet Walter. Some of you may know Walter for going viral a few years back for the infamous meme of him being on my counter with captions "He saw a mouse." Although Walter has thankfully outgrown his cat-like behavior of sitting on the counters he is still behaving like the most like cat-like dog I've ever meet. He is a large potato who loves to believe he is small enough to fit in your lap, takes up the entirety of the California King bed, drinks from the kitchen faucet with ease, and hates having a bath. See... Typical Cat.

Walter is soon to be 4 years old and has a disease that effects large breed dogs known as Hypertrophic osteodystrophy which essentially causes severe pain and inflammation in Walters joints because as a puppy he grew so rapidly. On July 2 around 7 in the morning Walter ate his breakfast like normal, but soon after began having troubles breathing, troubles vomiting, and having seizures. He was rushed to the most nearby hospital where he was immediately taken in for what I can only describe as what looked like three basketballs inside Walters stomach. The doctor's knew immediately that Walters stomach had flipped/twisted. He was punctured at the hospital to relieve some of the air before going through a complicated what should have been 1.5 hours surgery took 4+ hours. Walter had severe complications and blood loss which left us with the decision to let him go, or help him receive plasma, blood, pressors, etc to give his body a fighting chance at recovery. Walter was internally bleeding out because his spleen and liver were severely damaged when his stomach twisted and due to Walters disease of HOD diagnosed as a puppy he was having a harder time clotting, and managing his inflammation. As most families we were not prepared to go through this traumatizing experience, but we were also not ready to lose our best friend.

Walter is still in critical condition and each hour is important in determining his factors for recovery, but Walter is showing us all signs of wanting to fight for his life to be back in his king size bed with Mom and Dad. Maggie (our 5 year old lab) just isn't her spunky self without her best friend. This is a dog that never misses a meal and she is just pacing around looking for her big buddy. The kids miss him, we miss him, his fur buddies miss him, and we just want to give him all we have to assist him in fighting for his life.

We appreciate the support we have received thus far. Please keep all your prayers coming they mean the world to us!