Reddit.

Post the story with graphic pics on a default subreddit somewhere, someone will no doubt recommend a good one and help you come up with a post strategy (this is actually important). QGL peeps may be able to help with upvotes. reddit loves the shit out of cats and dogs.

Better cats than dogs, but its a good place to beg for help.

Look I don't want to come across as a completely insensitive bastard all the time, but isn't this what insurance is for?

Also good luck on your crowdsourcing. Reddit do love their pets!

What actually happened? Another dog off-leash that should have been muzzled?

yeah I"ll put in too.

I know this would be a devistating decision to make... but might the dog be/have been better off put down?
Seems like very extensive injuries, will it be able to make a full recovery?

Sympathies are with you, and I hope you nail whomever is responsible for the injuries.

Thanks guys, will post more details later, have had to head onsite with a client.

In short though, yes, she has a good chance of making a full recovery (barring post-op complications). Quickly though, at this stage, the only possible long-term injury is whether she'll regain full use of her front left fore-paw.

Dodgymon, she's currently at the Emergency Vet at Springwood as she's too sick to move at this stage. We should be able to get her out of there in the next couple of days. They've been phenomenally good for her. In the ICU, they have 24-hour, round the clock care with an almost 1:1 ratio of staff to animals. As soon as we can though, we're going to get her home and look after her there. Our normal vet is extremely good and is happy to help out, we just need to get her stable and on the mend first.

dRanged, we do have pet insurance, but the indications I've had from them so far is that they're not going to cover the injury.

yeah your local vet won't be available late at night though dodgymon (or overnight), so you're pretty much left with the handful of 24 hr centres around (AES at springwood, BVSC at albany creek, WAEC at UQ in St Lucia are the only 24 hr places that i know of). you're paying to have vets and vet nurses supervise the care of the animals for 24 hrs a day, these places are essentially hospitals rather than GP surgeries, to use an analogy, plus the cost of whatever the treatment itself is.

it's a sad state of affairs Gesthemene, but if you have a culprit i'd definitely be looking into passing on some of the costs to them or something like that.
what were the circumstances surrounding the mauling? dog park? walking in the street? animal came into your yard?

have you investigated getting credit? some places offer loans for such things (i think GE do - no idea about the terms/rates or anything though, probably exorbitant i imagine)

seems like Hoggy's ideas are the way to go regarding reddit/crowdfunding.

poor animal. it sucks when shit like this happens!

edit - well, Gesthemene seems to have covered my post before i pressed reply!


last edited by funky at 14:10:10 18/Sep/12

Sausage Sizzle for your friends/Family ?

Pet Bills are tough, You would like to think you would pay anything but at some point it becomes all too much.

Why didnt Insurance cover it ?

Ha, I hope you never EVER own a dog. In answer to your question, no I didn't ever think, "it's only a dog", because she's not "only a dog", she is a very significant part of our family and to us, that question is akin to saying, "It's only your child, you can have another one".

As for what happened:

We headed down to the Gold Coast on Friday night for my fiancé's birthday to stay with her family. My mother had very kindly agreed to look after her for the night. She lives on acreage and has a c~2 acre, fenced house yard. She also has a border collie that Lily (my dog) knows and gets along with quite well.

Apparently they were having an awesome time on the Saturday morning, chasing each other around the house etc. My mother had to go out for a few hours to see my older brother, his wife and her granddaughter. At about 5pm, we received a call on my fiancé's mobile from the daughter of my mother's neighbour. Apparently (and I say apparently, because we have no way of proving or disproving either way), Lily managed to escape the house yard, wandered across the paddock and into the neighbour's yard. Now, these neighbours don't have dogs, but their daughter and son-in-law were visiting as they had just returned from the Cape. They had their two dogs with them (I don't know any details about what breed they were etc, but apparently they were larger than Lily and apparently extremely aggressive) who saw Lily, chased her and attacked her.

We told them that we'd meet them at the Animal Emergency Hospital at Springwood and left the Coast immediately. They were already there (as Chambers Flat is a lot closer to Springwood than Currumbin) and Lily had already been admitted. When the doctors came out to see us, we were advised that she had been savaged all along the left side of her body. She had a 40cm circumference wound on the interior of her left haunch (think, her inner thigh), a gaping wound in her abdomen with fat tissue hanging out of the wound, puncture wounds all up her chest and a large wound on her left shoulder. She was also exhibiting a loss of mobility with her left front forepaw, as it keep knuckling in, as if she was trying to walk on her knee (elbow? Whatever you call the next joint up her leg after her foot) rather than her foot.

The doctors were concerned that if any of the puncture wounds in her chest had penetrated fully into the chest cavity, she was at risk of a collapsed lung and/or developing a pneumothorax. They were also concerned about the possibility of internal organ damage in her abdomen and the risk of permanent nerve damage to her forepaw from the bite wounds around her shoulder and armpit or even a possible fractured scapula.

We were told that they were extremely serious injuries, but at this stage, nothing that was immediately life-threatening.

At about 8pm, we were advised that they had x-rayed her shoulder and chest and saw no evidence of a broken scapula or pneumothorax, but that the wounds she had sustained needed to be treated straight away. She was rushed into surgery at about 8:30 and was under anesthesia until about 1:50am. During the surgery, the doctor discovered that the abdominal attacks had shredded the ligaments holding her intestines in place and nicked the intestine itself, but had not actually penetrated all the way through. The best news is that there were no other organs damaged at all.

She had 2 drains inserted into her abdomen and thigh in order to drain the fluid that would build up after the surgery to repair the damage. After she came out of surgery, she was placed into the ICU and watched around the clock, whilst being fed Fentanyl and Methodone intravenously.

We've been visiting her every day and calling for updates every 4-5 hours. She's slowly recovering, and as of today has had the two drains removed. She's still on an IV line to provide her with saline, potassium, painkillers, anti-emetics (to counter the nausea induced by the painkillers), GI motivators (to counter the peristalsis inhibition from the Fentanyl), antibiotics and a whole bunch of other stuff that I don't understand.

The vets are still concerned about the protein levels in her blood as well as the fact that it's taking longer to clot than it should. Every day she seems to be getting that little better and has started using her left fore-paw again, although she still stumbles on it every now and then. This is a good sign as it indicates that the damage may simply be caused by the trauma to the shoulder, or at worst the nerves being pinched by the swelling from the wounds. The biggest issue at the moment is that she hasn't eaten anything since Saturday morning. If she doesn't eat, she can't leave as they'll need to keep the antibiotics and painkillers being fed intravenously. The minute she starts to eat again, we can bring her home and keep nursing her here.

The doctors and nurses at AES have been phenomenal and the care they've provided has been top-rate. The only problem is how expensive it is. At the moment, they've been able to reduce her to Level 1 monitoring within the ICU, which is apparently the lowest you can get before being admitted back into the general ward, but even that is still costing $600 per day. With the medication and consumables they're going through with her, it's still adding up to almost $1000 per day.

We've already paid $6000 for the surgery and ICU costs (which covered from Saturday night to Monday morning). We're currently accruing further fees that will need to be paid immediately upon discharge. So, this is why we're looking for help. I'll be jumping on Reddit now to see what I can figure out, but having never even been to it before, it may take me a while to figure out where to post etc. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd really appreciate it.

Oh yeah, the doctors have a written report of the injuries and took photos when she was admitted. I've also taken some photos tonight to document the trauma we're seeing after the surgery.

As for the insurance, apparently they cancelled it on me back in July. It's funny, because I didn't receive a notification of it, simply the one from late June advising me that my policy had been renewed for another year. Apparently they'd cancelled it because the expiry date on my credit card is from 2011. This is despite the fact that I spoke to them around April after someone ran into my car and I had to give them my new credit card details over the phone. So, since I last posted, I've spoken to them and they've rejected my claim, but have referred me to the Out of Coverage Claims team. My understanding is that this is the team you get sent to when you're not strictly covered, but there are compassionate reasons for them to act like a good corporate citizen rather than a cold, heartless pack of assholes.

If anyone else has questions or wants clarification on anything, just let me know.

I'm really sorry about your situation, it's terrible.

My friend's German short-haired pointer had a thing for kangaroos (we live semi-rural). He'd always chase them, and if they'd fight back (often) he would just run into a dam and they wouldn't usually follow him in.

One day my mate was walking him off a lead through some paddocks and the same happened. Dog ran into the dam but the kangaroo was too quick and clawed him. Basically opened him right up. He died instantly. My mate had to carry the dead dog about 1km home, and he was a bloody mess as you can imagine, and explain to his younger brother (the owner) what had happened. Devastating incident.

I do want to convey what I would do in your situation though. Having had many pets of many different kinds (cats, birds and dogs) and loving them all, honestly in your situation I would put down Lily.

Pinky, I'm really trying to get my head around this. Why would you put the animal down when they're going to make a full recovery?

Superform, I absolutely agree. I was stunned when they told me that they'd cancelled the policy.

yeah i'd be looking into that Gesthemene - can you prove that you gave them your new credit card details etc etc? cos surely you'd have a case there that you did everything possible to keep your policy current?

also, my ex gf was a vet, and plenty of people are forced to put down animals when they simply can't afford the treatment. sad, but a very real fact.

Pinky, I'm really trying to get my head around this. Why would you put the animal down when they're going to make a full recovery?

I guess I must be poorer than you *shrug* Unfortunately for me it would be a financial consideration.

I'm interested to see how your crowd-funding effort goes though. Good luck, it's a massive financial outlay.

On crowd-funding for charitable reasons did anyone follow the Linux developer who had cancer in the US? Due to their messed up hospital system they had to come up with some stupid about of cash for treatment.

Hoggie, you're right, we don't have kids at this stage, so I don't have any real basis to compare it to, but the statement I hear a lot from parents is that they'd be willing to kill or die to protect their children. On that basis, I feel the same about this dog. If I had to put myself into a situation where I had to kill someone or risk getting killed myself to protect them, I wouldn't even need to think about it, I'd be going straight for the throat.

I don't really get the notion of significantly endangering your life for a pet. I'm not going near murder over a pet, that seems like hyperbole, and I'm not allowed to react to that anymore.

It just doesn't seem sensible to me. I couldn't leave my kids fatherless, my wife a widow, and force my parents to endure the grief of burying their child for the sake of our dog, but holy shit I would bend time and space for any of my boys!

Good news about your dog, now I don't feel so bad about having to do this....

I'm the first to admit that I don't have children yet

Oh... that's big of you!

Good news about your dog, now I don't feel so bad about having to do this....

I'm the first to admit that I don't have children yet

Oh... that's big of you!

Err... Precisely why did you feel you had to take something I'd said completely out of context? Not even just out of context, but ignoring the second half of that sentence? Bad troll is bad :(

Upvoted you on reddit ..

I hope your little buddy makes a full recovery and best of luck with your fundraising :) Ignore the comments about euthenasia, I understand wanting to do whatever it takes to organise the funds for treatment ..

I'm actually trying to find the best fundraising strategy for my daughter right now, and was looking into indiegogo and gofundme myself. I was under the impressing that you could use indiegogo for charitible causes, you just had to provide perks/rewards for specific levels of donations. May be wrong though.

My issue is that my 3yo baby girl is autistic, and we want to get on top of therapy ASAP so that she can hopefully live a relatively normal life. She's completely non-verbal, has constant meltdowns and has no concept of danger/burning/cars/lots of other things that most people take for granted. It's a daily struggle to do basic things.

Our paed has recommended at least 25 hours a week of intensive one on one therapy. This would include Speech therapy, occupational therapy, a sensory profile & diet and ABA (Applied behavior analysis) which requires a small team of therapists and a coordinator. For all of this I'm looking at about 60k a YEAR.

Government funding is 12k to last till she's 7, at a max spend of 6k a year.

On top of this, we're REALLY hoping to get approved for an autism assistance dog hopefully via smartpups.org.au . If we do, we'd need to help raise 23k to raise and train it.

Meanwhile, my partner and I combined make only about 44k a year. I work beyond full time for a small startup, as well as juggling my own hosting and design businesses and a new store (twotinytots.com.au) .

Any assistance in terms of advice on fundraising would be GREATLY appreciated.

Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread either just trying to move it back to what I think it was originally intended for and not a euthanasia argument..

Ya, we're on the waiting list there too :)

My brother has his head set on getting an Alaskan Klee Kai. Even putting aside the emotional bond, you would expect to pay $4,000 just for the pup, let alone being on a waiting list for them.

You won't like this, but whatever, you asked for money making suggestions. You work in IT in a capital city and your household income is 44k?

Stop working on building businesses and at startups. Around here we call that chocolate, and you only play with chocolate when the bills are paid / you have the luxury to do so.

In your profession you should be able to pull 6 figures contracting in Brissy, assuming you don't suck. This is vanilla work. Yes its boring. But you need money for your daughter.

Err... Precisely why did you feel you had to take something I'd said completely out of context? Not even just out of context, but ignoring the second half of that sentence? Bad troll is bad :(

I'm gonna let this shit slide because your dog is all fucked up

I find it strange that such a significant member of your family does not have the necessary insurance cover which meets their health requirements.

P.S Sell your car, I'll buy it.

Although it would be nice to just decide to get a "six figure" job somewhere, it's not quite that simple..

The reason I'm doing it this way is because I 100% NEED to be able to work from home with flexible hours to work around the therapy and help look after my kids. They're a massive handful, and I can't just leave 5 days a week. I also have zero formal qualifications despite 10+ years of hands on experience in all areas of IT.

Yes, more money would be amazing but its just not that likely - and I would be destroying years of work to just give up now..

Also there is no magic insurance for autism that makes this go away :P

hey smashcrab you may just want to save your 25k donated from everyone / government while you do whatever and just buy your little girl a deviantart account for furry porn artwork and a something awful account ($10) so she can post in gbs.

im not sure id drop 6k if spook jnr got mauled.

not sure if i like the ways hes turning out to be honest.

mite just go back to the drawing board and start again building the super child.

Just no.

Just yes.

So close minded. I guess your way or the highway for everything?

Nope? You're the one throwing around 'just no' remarks dude.

Also Gesthemene, I might have sounded callus, but those feelings about losing your pet? They're real and i am sorry if i sounded rude about what I said. I'm glad to hear she's doing well and that's the best outcome you could hope for so I'm happy for you. :)

Oh yawn.

More to the point to for the OP. I tried viewing the reddit (I'm also a reddit newbie) and I didn't see any donation thing. Then again I didn't see how to expand your main post or there wasn't much to it.
Sorry.

last edited by Mephz at 18:42:57 19/Sep/12

Ok, the page is live, you can view it here: http://www.gofundme.com/18fzm4

Dazhel has been awesome and donated before I even had the page set up and running.

If anyone else feels like donating, it would mean an awful lot to us. Even if you don't or can't, if you could do me a favour and share it around on twitter/facebook/carrier pigeon etc, that would be awesome too.

Thanks for the bump :)

I posted it on my facebook page.

Thanks for all the misguided unwanted career advice. I need to work from home since my kids require full on care from both of us every day. My partner doesn't work for the same reason. Thanks to the qgl people that donated :)

Thanks for all the misguided unwanted career advice.

When you stick your hand up and beg for help from random strangers people are going to ask why you can't take care of your family yourself.

If you don't like it, don't beg.

my kids require full on care from both of us every day.

Except when you're running your own business and petitioning for charity though? right?

1 full time worker and a support person(evening shift while the wife takes a break) I can understand, but 2 full time workers for a child that would be less than 50kg, I don't think so.

Im speechless, what a bunch of miserable assholes.

Im speechless, what a bunch of miserable assholes.

Why, because we took the time to offer advice rather than cash, and were told off for it?

Go figure.

Why, because we took the time to offer advice rather than cash, and were told off for it?

Go figure.

Well, I'm asking for both advice and cash, so either is applicable and appreciated :)

However, advice should actually be constructive. 20/20 hindsight *isn't* helpful and just makes people feel like shit. Not casting aspersions or calling anyone out, just stating a general rule of thumb.

I went to donate some money for the save the doggy fund, but then saw people asking money for infant burial services on that web site and decided that a dog didn't need my money any more.

Ticman, I can understand that. I'm definitely not saying that my cause is the most warranted or the saddest story out there etc. At least I've still got my dog. If we have to live on noodles and baked beans for a few months to pay people back for helping us when we needed it, so be it. All I'm asking for is that if you feel strongly enough towards a random guy from the web that you've never met to help him out of a bit of trouble, please feel free. Whether that help is financial, the giving of advice or even just spreading the word is fine.

If you feel that donating to a fund to bury a child is a more worthwhile cause, by all means, donate to them too/instead. I guarantee that if I had spare cash right now, I'd be donating to that.

Rename your thing from 'help sick dog' to 'Obsidian Kickstarter' and watch the cash roll in.

Fuck you, I just spilled coffee on my shirt :(

Well, so far I've had one guy from the US donate $100 through gofundme. Any ideas on how else I could get the word out about it?

Your story isn't tear-jerking enough to get a lot of random people donating for it or even spreading the story around. You would have had a better chance if your dog's life depended on the money - but it doesn't. Your dog is alive and the only problem is you got yourself into debt to pay for it, and many people will think the same. (I'm only trying to point out why your offer won't spread or attract attention).

You could try to make an emotional you-tube video and get it infront of the right type of facebook groups. Find a link to a twitter star with heaps of followers - someone from PETA.

I honestly think your best bet to raise some cash fast is to have a garage sale or something and try and get some donations on the day. Get creative and give them a discount if they tweet or link your donation page.

Or maybe sell your car and trade down.



last edited by Herron at 16:30:51 24/Sep/12

Yes, I work beyond full time hours among a few different projects but the beauty of working from home (with my "office" in the living room) means I can & do drop what I'm doing to assist with whatevers happening constantly.

I also have TWO kids, not just my daughter I also have a 16 month old boy who needs attention as well. Katana's weight is also irrelevant to this, its not just about physically restraining her - I'd like her to not be distressed all the time as well and this regularly takes both of us to calm her down and get into her world to figure out what's gotten her upset and fix it. Some people here are just talking out their ass, and I doubt you've had any full on experience with an autistic child to begin to understand the stress and dramas involved in the most basic everyday activities.

I'm done trying to justify myself to the trolls.

OP , I would suggest posting to the /r/assistance subreddit as well :)

Has it been mentioned you might be able to get them on their home insurance (if they have it). back when i worked for an insurance company i saw the odd claim by the 3rd party for our insured's dog mauling theirs.

Do you think I'd be better off explaining that the fund is more about paying back those people who have done so much to help us in as short a timeframe as possible? As I said in my earlier post, if I have to live on noodles and baked beans for a few months or so to do it, I will, but if possible, I'd prefer to not leave them hanging for so long.

wait, you want other people to donate money so you don't have to deal with the inconvenience of paying your parents back?

Most pound/animal medic places are basically corrupt. Does it take 1000 a day to take care of a dog? No its just they caught you out and sucking is going to begin. I would ask for a detailed report of every dollar spent so you can find out about the cost and how much inflated it is. Most vets will NOT give you such a thing as they are SCAMERS. Unfortunate but true

Because vets shouldn't be rewarded for the expensive and demanding higher study that they have invested in?

wait, you want other people to donate money so you don't have to deal with the inconvenience of paying your parents back?

Such an unbelievably poor interpretation of the thread so far.

Gesthemene - do you have any assets? In your situation I would, for example, sell my $20k car and buy a $5k car, things like that to raise a quick buck. Even refinance my house would be a valid option for a quick $10k.

The 60kpa team is our current estimate to give her the minimum recommended 20H a week of Speech, Occupational/Behavioural therapy and ABA (the most expensive part). So far we only have her in Speech and OT, and we're still interviewing juniors to organise our ABA team before doing a big training weekend. Just more money I don't have, but I'll make it happen because thats just what she needs.

The ridiculous amount of facebook contacts is cos I used to run a few news sites .. I have ~2k friend requests sitting in a que that I can't answer due to fb friend limits. Got some interesting & famous connections from all over the world, but it's not doing me much good right now :o/

pinky, vet graduates are pretty poorly paid too. iirc when my ex graduated in 08, the average was 47k. not much for how much time and study involved. many of her year had done degrees beforehand, or at least some study in order to 'upgrade' into vet.

vets have high costs, and no government subsidies (like doctors/hospitals) not for drugs, not for consultations, not for equipment (xray machines etc aren't cheap..), not to mention regular business costs, rent, fixtures, wages, etc etc.

sure, might be dodgy people out there, but there are dodgy people in every profession out there. vet is no better nor worse

The doc said, "Jetzt kommt das was ich diesem Job so hasse." -> "Now that's why I've come to hate this job so."

Do you think I'd be better off explaining that the fund is more about paying back those people who have done so much to help us in as short a timeframe as possible?

I think you'll get the same sort of reactions as what many are giving you here. I don't think you're going to get a big enough response asking for donations.

You'll have a better chance fundraising using a method where the person giving you money gets something back in return. Use the dog as a way to promote it.

People will respond differently when they see you are working towards paying your parents back rather than asking them to pay your parents back. If you were a kid I'd tell you to go knock on doors and ask if your neighbours have some odd jobs for you to do as you are trying to get some money for your sick dog. I think the neighbours will be quite generous in that situation because the kid is trying hard to save his dog and is willing to work for it.

Maybe you can organise a raffle or something around your area, cake store, garage sale. You used to be able to run raffles through facebook but things may have changed. I don't know what your skills are but maybe there is something you can offer their at a discounted rate after-hours.

If you own a nice car then downgrading to a shitbox would be the fastest result if possible. Then work on saving back up for the car.

oh snaps