Fund Cash's Fight for Recovery

Erycka Lipowski is organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

Hi everyone.

This is Cash. Cash is a two year old yellow Labrador, he’s goofy, friendly and such a good boy.

On Saturday, May 4th 2024, he was viciously attacked by two neighborhood pitbulls in his own fenced in yard.

Here is the breakdown:

The morning of May 4th around 8:20AM my husband let Cash out to do his outside duties and to enjoy the nice weather. About ten minutes later at 8:30AM my husband heard a loud yelp so naturally he looked out the window to investigate. He then saw Cash getting brutally attacked by our neighbors pitbulls. Again, Cash was fenced in. The two pitbulls broke down our fence to get to him.

My husband jumped to the rescue but needed assistance of others due to one of the dogs trying to get to him. I was woken up by his screams, begging for help. I ran outside and saw my husband trying to shield Cash and the neighbors teen barely holding onto one of the dogs. As I quickly asses the situation clearly, I see one pitbull biting on Cash’s neck, acting like it’s some kind of chew toy, trying to shake it back and forth. I realized the dogs jaw is locked. I tried absolutely everything I could, along with my husband to make this dog let go. No luck. Finally, an adult neighbor, from the same household as the teen boy comes out and tries to take a leash to get under their dogs teeth. My husband begs her to stop because it’s only pulling on Cash’s neck. Somehow, someway, about two minutes later we got the dog to let go of Cash. We immediately grab Cash and as we are running inside our neighbor casually shouts “let us know how much it is.” Not a ‘sorry’, not a ‘is he okay?’. As we get inside we see the trauma to his ears, head and neck. We know it’s urgent.

We loaded up both our kids, ourself and Cash and race to the Emergency Vet.

The two receptionist see us rush in and immediately notice Cash’s condition and rushed him back to get to work. As the doctors in the back take vitals and whatever else they take, we get sat in a room to speak to a technician. Of course, we explain what happened and they brought in another doctor to help with Cash’s surgery. The emergency vet gave us the OK to leave and they will call us when Cash was ready to be picked up.

While Cash was in surgery, we called Animal Control with no luck, since it was on a Saturday. I ended up filing a police report and even with that, no luck. They told us they cannot help us and this is for Animal Control. Finally, after asking our community for help and to guide us on who to call, we got in contact with a place called SBARC. They sent an officer out to our neighbors house, asked the general questions and told them they needed to place their dogs on a ten day quarantine, afterwards they need to get microchipped and they also have ten days to show their dogs veterinary records to show if they have had their rabies shots.

(While typing this, it has not hit the ten day mark so we have no knowledge of the outcome). We were told our neighbors were not corporative and getting information was not easy as they beat around the bush, were closed off and had a bad attitude towards the officer. Other than that, SBARC has not been any help to us, even after sending photos of Cash’s condition. They merely stated that it is a first offense so it’s not urgent. It is considered urgent only if it’s aggression. This statement baffled me considering this was 100 % aggression. We need change. This is not acceptable. Allowing this to happen because it’s the “first offense.” Cash would have died if it went on a couple more minutes if it wasn’t intervened.

Eight, dreadful hours pass by and we get that phone call. Finally. We once again pack up as a family and head to the clinic.

This is the condition he was in when we picked him up. A shave job, clipped and cleaned/flushed wounds, laser treatment and stitched up in a few places.

The doctors advised they were going to leave the wounds open due to the fact they needed to drain out. They also stated that due to their experience, where the bites were and how many bites accumulated, the pitbulls intended to kill him. Cash is currently on 7 medications:

1. Gabapentin / 300mg

2. Trazodone / 100mg

3. Cefpodoxime / 200mg

4. Carprofen / 75mg

5. Baytril / 68mg

6. Amoxicillin / 250mg

7. Amoxicillin / 500mg

When he came home on Saturday evening, he could not settle down. He was very skeptical and standoffish when it came to going outside to go to the restroom. My husband and I had to coax him with treats.

He is traumatized and petrified to be in his own yard. He cannot live comfortably or safely knowing his neighbors condone vicious, sporadic, and aggressive behavior from their canines. Knowing that, it hurt our hearts. But physically seeing it broke us. We have been his voice since and want justice for him and all dogs who come under attack by dangerous dogs.

The next two days Sunday, May 5th and Monday, May 6th he seemed to bounce back and was just his tail wagging, people loving self - until he wasn’t. Cash went downhill at random. The afternoon of Tuesday, May 7th around 2:35PM his neck became enlarged and swollen. His odor became more foul to where it invaded our entire house.

I rushed out of work as quickly as I could to meet my husband at Cash’s primary vet. They got him in fairly quickly and gave him a quick look over. They said the smell in itself was 100% infection but to be certain they stuck a needle in the swollen portion of his neck and pulled out rust color blood with puss. They confirmed it was definitely infected. They proceeded to rub his neck with wipes that had some sort of medication on them and began to message his wound. In between this the vet was all over the place to where they dropped a cloth cleaning pad and Cash being.. Cash / a dog, he ate it. Due to the nature of the material the pad was made out of they had to give him a shot to force him to vomit. (poor dog cannot catch a break). Fast forward to the next day, Wednesday, May 8th. I tried to clean his wounds just like his primary vet showed us and I happened to notice the deepest wound stitches came undone. I assume from the vomiting. I loaded Cash into the car and headed straight to the emergency clinic. Once again, they got him right back and he was gone for about three hours. Cash did not need just a clean. His infection ended up causing Necrotic tissue. Necrotic tissue is dead tissue that can get bad fast, especially if it goes untreated. It can destroy skin, muscle, other soft tissue and can cause amputation, kidney failure, sepsis and eventually death.

The doctors had to sedate Cash, again. They did almost everything they did the first time he made his appearance there. The wound flush, clipping, etc. The only other thing they added was a bandage inside his pocket of infection to help medicate it with the medication the bandage had on it. They ended up stitching the bandage on him and told us if the bandage gets soaked / wet or begins to smell he needs to come back.

You guessed it. The bandage became soaked on Thursday, May 8th. After work my husband and I went to the emergency clinic to have Cash checked out. They sedated him again due to the severity of the wound and how deep the pocket was. They ended up adding a drain to the upper part of his neck, cleaning wounds again and adding a tie bandage. Cash is now required to have daily bandage changing. Only a veterinarian can change the bandages.

Friday, May 10th before his bandage change.

And after. (I didn’t get a photo of the actual bandage but it looked good and cleaned out)

This process is becoming extremely expensive and our family has spent almost $3,400 in total so far and unfortunately, it’s still not over.

Today, May 18th 2024, he went in to get sutures for the massive hole in his neck.

Here is what it looks like now

It has been a long process but day by day he is healing. We will have future check-ups but we are not sure how many more.

Our neighbors have not said a word to us since. My husband has dropped vet bills off since their dogs did it and because they told us “let us know how much it is.” But we haven’t been reimbursed. No effort to communicate with us either.

We are needing help with his vet bills. Please, he is only two years old and did not deserve this.