Save our puppy\'s life!

Meet Leo.  Leonidas actually.

 

Pretty cute huh?

Well there\'s more story to it then that.

Brittany(My wife) and I had been trying to find a friend to go along with our Boxer Paddington.  We are HUGE fans of rescuing dogs and there are so many dogs out there that needs homes!

We hopped on Craigslist, checked in with the local shelter, and talked around with friends, hoping to find a dog that was right for us.

One day as I was poking around Craigslist I stumbled across an ad for a German Shepherp/ Rot puppy!  He was 6 months old, great with kids, and great with other dogs.

Perfect!

So I called the number on the ad and the lady told me that she had rescued the mama and the mama had gotten out, gotten pregnant, and had 10 puppies.  They just couldn\'t keep them all.

She said the only thing with him was that he had tried to get out of his kennel and had gotten his hind due claw caught.  They had gotten it repaired, but it would take another week and a half for him to heal.  Britt and I talked about it and decided that wasn\'t too big of a risk, it seemed like a simple procedure and it wouldn\'t be that long until he was better.

So we agree to adopt him, got his medicine, his paperwork, and headed on home!  

He is the sweetest puppy.  He is mild mannered, doesn\'t chew too much, hardly barks, and is mostly potty trained.  For an outdoor puppy who hasn\'t been worked with, he was like a miracle!  Just as good as all of that, he gets along so well with our Boxer.

Two days later we decided to take the little guy to our vet, to have him heartwormed, checked for worms, and just to make sure he was healing correctly. 

Well the vet knelt down, felt his leg and said, \"I think we need to do surgery, it feels like he has torn something in his knee.\"  My heart sank.  What were we going to do?!? We had just rescued this puppy and now they were telling us he needed surgery! I asked the question I really didn\'t want to know the answer to, \"How much is it going to cost?\"  Between $1500-2000 was her response.  

 

My heat sank lower.

I knew that we couldn\'t afford that.

So we said our thank you\'s, piled back into the truck and headed home to tell Britt the sad news.  I didn\'t think we were going to be able to keep our new little guy.  It wasn\'t fair to him to have a hurt leg, but there was nothing we could do financially. 

Sure enough, Britt was heart-broken.  We had barely had this guy for a week, but already he had become part of the family.

We talked about it and decided we couldn\'t just get rid of him, give him back, or take him to the county.  We were sure that he would just be \"put down\". 

So we started talking around to rescues, talked friends and everyone suggested we try to get another opinion.  We took him to a vet where a friend works and they did x-rays.  

It was discovered that he didn\'t have a torn ligament in his knee, but that he DID have 3 broken bones in that one leg!  Poor guy!  The x-rays were sent to a specialist to check out what should be done...The vet called us the next day and said that Leo would need surgery, it wouldn\'t be as bad as a ligament reconstruction, but he would need 3 pins put in his leg!

We decided that although it wasn\'t our plan that we were given a chance to make a difference for this little guy and to save his life!  The friend that works for the vet had told him that I do some graphic design and Britt does photography and it look like we are going to be able to barter some of the cost of the surgery, but not all of it.  

That where we need your help.

If you would consider donating $10, $20, $50, or any amount to help us save little Leo!