Soma's New Knees

Meet Soma. Soma is a 2-year-old Lab/American Bulldog who loves exploring trails, making friends with squirrels, taking her humans kayaking and camping, cuddling, and saving the world in her spare time. 

Soma's life hasn't always been so fun. G.R.R.R. (Georgia Rescue, Rehabilitation, and Relocation), the rescue that found Soma her humans, first found Soma tied up under a trailer with her mom and several of her siblings, abandoned with no food or water and left to die. Soma was 8 weeks old. 

G.R.R.R. nursed Soma back to health and fell in love with her, like most people do.  Soma is gentle and playful and as goofy as they come. Her humans feel very lucky to have her. 



Meet Soma's humans. We are Adam and Rachel. We adopted Soma when she was 8 months old, and have made it our prerogative over the last year and a half to give Soma the life of adventure and crazy amounts of love that she deserves.

But Soma hasn't been so active lately. Here's where you come in:

Soma needs new knees. 

Like, both knees. In all of her adventuring and with help from a genetic predisposition to knee problems, Soma has torn both ACLs in her back legs. She is in constant pain. She can no longer run outside or jump into the car like she used to, and she needs to be carried up the stairs at home. Losing the full use of her back legs has also led to atrophied muscle in her hips, legs, and back causing a curve in her spine. The surgeon says she probably tore one ACL first and compensated by putting her weight on the other side, breaking it down over time. Soma didn't tell us how much pain she was in until the second ACL was broken down, too. Did we mention how stoic she is?

Dr. Shealy and the team at Coastal Empire Veterinary Surgery think Soma is the perfect candidate for surgery. One at a time, they will reshape the knees to an angle that works well for Soma's body so she won't even need her ACLs anymore. As her legs heal, she will have daily physical therapy to teach her how to walk again without compensating and build up her atrophied muscles so they can support her like they need to. The cost of the surgery, bloodwork, anesthesia, 3 weeks of daily physical therapy, and checkups and radiographs every 4 weeks as she heals, is $8,135. That is more money than we are able to come up with in a fair amount of time to keep Soma waiting to get out of pain. 

We are asking for any help you are able to give to make our dream a reality of having Soma back to her full potential as quickly as possible. Any amount of money will be a huge help, and we will be forever grateful! Any funds raised over our initial request of $8,135 will be donated to the rescue that saved Soma's life and the lives of so many other dogs in the area, G.R.R.R.- Georgia Rescue, Rehabilitaiton, and Relocation, so that they can continue to do their great work. Donations to G.R.R.R. are used to pay for food, shots, toys, and spay/neuter procedures for foster animals. See the work G.R.R.R. is doing here.

Soma is a young dog with lots of life left to live, and this surgery would provide her with the quality of life she deserves to make the rest of her years as adventure-filled as possible. The surgery has a very high success rate, and after recovery Soma's knees will be even better than the ones she was born with! Please consider helping to make Soma the happiest dog in the world with a donation. We are so thankful for you!