Peppy, Survived 9 days alone-Vet costs!

Our dog Peppy, was left with family while we went on holiday for a few days. She left the locked property (found a small hole in fence) in the early hours of 31st Dec Saturday. She was obviously trying to get back to her house which is only 1/2km away. While crossing Te Ngae Road, she’s been hit by a vehicle in the left hip, causing her to break her pelvis in 3,4 places (according to Vets x-rays yesterday) and shattering the hip ball joint.

We learned from a man nearby who said he saw this little dog get hit and that she had run off to the field at the end of Sunrise Ave. He had told us this on Sunday am 8/1/17 as he received one of our lost pet fliers that was dropped in his box the day before. We searched in this paddock and it’s at least 10 acres with high grass, weeds, gorse bush and very hard to get around in. We looked for quite a while but it would have taken a number of days to thoroughly search the field. We figured she had probably died as the injuries we heard from the man were bad, it had been 9 days at that stage and nobody had seen her or had any sightings. We resigned ourselves to the fact she had died in the field from her injuries.

A lovely neighbour at the back of the paddock that we'd been searching for her saw our lost pet poster at the Owhata shops and he was speaking to his friend who said a ‘dog who matched that description turned up yesterday afternoon at his house' They put two and two together and rang us a couple of hours later. She'd been living rough in the field for 9 and a bit days, without water or food AND dealing with her injuries.

So How could we now snuff out the life of something that has fought so hard to survive! We’ve chosen option B, with the operation costing $1200ish and a lot of our friends and workmates have said (and even insisted!) we should put up a ‘give a little’ page so we are doing so to help cover Peppy’s vet and surgery costs only.

The vet option one was, fix a plate to her pelvis, remove ball joint, operation in Matamata with a vet surgeon and cost at $3500 plus

Option B is to have her hip ball joint removed and leave the pelvis to heal on its own, $1200 plus

Option Z (lights out Peppy) is still an option if she’s suffering in pain unnecessarily! (Not as yet, she’s still eating, drinking, moving around slowly, pooping, weeing fine!)

She still has to have bloods done to find out if her liver/kidneys have been damaged beyond repair from being starved of food and water for 9 days.