Fighting for Dixie
On Thursday, May 6th my 13 year old daughter was walking our 6 month old miniature dachshund on leash in the neighborhood. A large dog ran out of it's yard and across the street and attacked our sweet baby. My daughter was so shook up she couldn't even get her phone unlocked to call us. The attack was so vicious it took both of the dog's owners and a passerby beating the dog and prying it's mouth open to free Dixie. My daughter was then left to walk several blocks home with our injured puppy covered in blood. We rushed Dixie to the vet and she has several very traumatic injuries. Fractured vertebra, broken ribs, peritoneal hernia with damaged kidney, bite wounds all over her body. After taking her to our vet we took her to emergent after hours vet and then decided to drive her 2 hours to UF Gainsville. We've heard good things about them and the cost is lower at the facility because it is a teaching facility.
Since being at UF, Dixie has had to have CT, MRI, ultrasounds, bloodwork and constant monitoring.
She had to have spine surgery on 5/11 because she hasn't been able to stand or walk on her back legs because of the spinal fractures and spinal compression. They saw a lot of infection when they opened her up for the surgery. She then developed a fever following surgery and they believe she has infection from the dog bite wounds. She still has a long road ahead of her and we've already exceeded $10,000 worth of vet bills which have already been charged to our credit card. I'm not really sure where our total is going to end up to fix everything she's got going on but today they gave us an estimate of at least another $4,000 - not to mention the money spent at the other two places.
We're hoping that we can get her well enough to bring home and continue care/treatment for her mobility. They still may need to go in and fix the hernia and possibly remove the damaged kidney but they needed to do the spinal surgery first to stabilize her spine and can't even think about doing another surgery until they get her fever down.
I didn't want to start a go fund me because I'm expecting these dog owners to step up and reimburse us for all of these costs, but I have little hope we'll get anything from them without litigation and I'm not sure how long it will take to get the money, if we ever do. Our budget cannot take this kind of hit, as we both work and are not exactly rolling in dough and have put all of this on our credit card. Since a lot of people were asking about us having a go fund me, I reluctantly have started one. If you are so inclined to do so and can give we appreciate your support of us and Dixie during this difficult time. If at some point we are able to recoup the money from the other dog owners, we would use any excess funds for Dixie's continued care and if we had any extra we would donate it to an animal rescue. I'm not trying profit from this, just trying to stay afloat while we do all we can for Dixie to survive and make it home to us.
And the big kick in the face here....so the dog owner was injured on her hand while she was prying her dogs mouth off of our dog and she claimed to animal services that it was our dog that inflicted those wounds on her hand by biting her. Animal services is attempting to quarantine Dixie and have it that Dixie was the only dog that bit a human!! In actuality, that lady was bit by her own dog, and she admitted that to my husband on the phone. So, right now, that vicious dog doesn't even have to be quarantined or anything. There is an on-going dangerous dog investigation but how does animal services get away with only getting the "victims" account and making that the truth. Yes, I said "victim", they are considering the owner of this dog that viciously attacked my puppy a victim because that owner said she was bit by Dixie. COMPLETE ABSURDITY!
Thank your for any contribution you can make, even if it's just an encouraging note to keep us going through all of this.
