On New Year's Eve, my bf and I went to a party at a friend's house. It ended up being a sleep over, even though none of us drink. On New Year's Day, I had to work and then we went to my bf's parents' house because it was his dad's birthday. When we got home that night, our dog Chance was missing. My bf (GLen) went out looking for him while I checked the pound's website and called the pound. Chance has tags and is micro-chipped, so I was optimistic. There was no sign of him, but when GLen got back with my car, we both went out to look some more. It was freezing, we were exhausted, and we knew we'd have better luck in the morning, so we went home. At 9 in the morning, I got a phone call from a wonderful lady named Jennifer, who had found Chance! I was the most excited and we went straight over there. When we got there, it became apparent that all was not well, Chance was not walking on his left back leg at all. It was a Sunday, and most of the vets around here were closed, and GLen was getting paid the next day, so we decided to wait until today. When we got to the vet, they did the initial check-up and then the vet informed us that she wanted to sedate him to do the x-rays because the way they needed to bend the leg, based on his swelling and her check-up, would likely hurt Chance and he would try to fight them. So, for this vet trip altogether, it would be about $375. But what choice did we have? So we consented and waited in the waiting room while they sedated him and did the x-rays. When they were done, they called us into a room to give us the results. Chance's CCL (which is a ligament like the ACL in humans, located at the knee) is torn completely in half. From DogKneeInjury.Com: "The way the stifle (or knee) in a dog is situated, there is a major ligament located on the anterior of the knee that plays the role of providing stability to the knee joint. It achieves this stability by attaching to the anterior of the joint, stabilizing the femur on the tibia. In dogs this ligament is known as the cranial (also sometimes referred to as canine) cruciate ligament, or CCL." What this means is that his femur is sliding down the tibia. As of right now, it hasn't moved very much, but it will if we don't do anything. The surgery the vet wants to do is called Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy (TPLO). This surgery will cost $3,000+. As you might imagine, I do not have that kind of money laying around. There is a credit card specifically for this kind of thing, but GLen doesn't qualify and I only qualify for $500. We're going to see if we can get someone to co-sign, but that's fairly unlikely. I had a minor panic attack at the vet's office, and am really freaking out. We have about 6 weeks to wait before the injury gets worse, which is not enough time to come up with $3,000. I'm going to be exploring every possible avenue to save my dog. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them. Thanks for reading! - Dene P.S. If you would like to help out by donating money, I made a ChipIn where you can do just that. THE CUTENESS;