PRO ANIMALS

BURSU

For us and also for the vets Bursu was a real miracle. He was a healthy young male, a gorgeos one, playing all day long without stop with our other dogs, nothing could stop him.

Unfortunately, due to a stupid accident, he paralised of his back legs. It had been a shock for him transforming himself into a crawling dog, with no strenght. He was staying all day long in the same place, very sad, and had lost a lot of weight very quickly. It was devastating seeing him like this. I brought him to vets here who didn’t know what’s the disease, I brought him to a city nearby to a better vet, who after maiking the x-rays said that nothing is bad with his spine, but it might be a marrow compression and that it all depends on how he is taken care of but the chances are minimal. He was sleeping with us in the room,and his eyes full of hope met us every morning and night. We decided to go to Bucharest where there are the best vets, so we visited two vets: one at the Veterinary Medicine, considered to be very skilled, who said that Bursu will NEVER walk again, he will NEVER recover and it is better to euthanise him and the second said that we can do him a myelogram but in his opinion there are under 1% chances.

We couldnt’ stop crying and crying, as he was a young dog full of life, and he wanted to live….so we decided to give him a chance, to fight for his life together. We want to thank to Mrs. Kiia Vasko for his moral support and advice with Bursu’s situation but also for the vitamins and medicines that she provided us. So, we started to read and read about his disease, meantime surrounding him with lots of love and care. It wasn’t an easy period, as his clothes had to be changed and washed every day and lot of care to be given. We were making him massage every evening, exercising giving him good food, vitamins and medicines, keeping him warm.

After a period, we realized that he started to feel his back legs, we were also taking him outside in the garden, first in our arms, but seeing the other dogs running he was fighting to jump of our arms, so we left him use Marc’s wheelchair. One should have seen him how proud and happy he was that he can run too with the others. We figured out that he is on the right way and that he has big chances to recover now, so we went on with the care and treatment.

His situation started to improve from day to day, until he started to walk on his own legs, little by little. We couldn’t belive this, because from the point of view of 4 vets, he was considered a lost cause, no worthing to fight.

After another period, Bursu started to walk again normally. From our point of view he is indeed a miracle, and just want to know that it worthed every single effort we made for him. It is not easy to handle and live with a handicapped dog, and many people, not able to face with so much care and lack of their own confort, can’t face this and give up.

But, for us, every dog needs care, attention and love, and every dogs deserves the same, never make differences.

MARC

In November 2004, while we were preparing to go to the shelter, we found in front of our home a poor small dog, very skinny, with a very sad look, who couldn’t walk on his back legs , probably had been hit by a car.He was crawling and had big wounds at his back legs.
It was awful and when we saw him like that he broke our heart.
He probably had an owner who abandoned him when he saw his situation and instead of calling us to let us know about him, he prefered to be a coward with no heart and left him on the street all alone, despite his condition.
We took him inside( although at that time we had another 16 we couldn’t bring him to the shelter), we fed him and started to take care of him.
But, we knew that our love and home treatment is not enough so we decided to bring him to a vet for a check and X-rays to see what’s wrong with his spine and if something could be done for him.
As in Tg-Jiu there’s no vet who has X-rays and other equipments needed in this situation, we decided to go with him to Bucharest.The problem was that Bucharest is 300 km distance, the vets ask a lot of money and as much as we wanted to we couldn’t do this alone.
Having a lot of financial difficulties and being aware that we couldn’t afford to support these expenses we asked support from foreign animal protection organization, but the only one who gave us a positive answer and showed a lot of compassion and moral support was " Wetnose" from England. They were willing to support all the expenses, from transport, X-rays, medicines, to surgery.
So,we brought Marc to Bucharest, he had his X-rays and an operation on his spine. After the surgery his situation improved a little and we belive that someday he will be able to walk again.

From the beginning I was changing him daily the bandages from his legs and in about one month there was no injure, the bone recovered and the hair grew back. Soon he started to gain weight be like a "pumpkin".

As you may imagine,he is not easy to take care of, towels and blankets must be changed daily, need to clean after him many times everyday, but all this doesn’t matter as long as he is happy and content with his life.
He is surrounded with a lot of love and by a lot of friends, who, as if feeling that he has problems, give him a lot of attention.MAybe many would consider that it was in vain and would have euthanised him immediately. But seeing him everyday, seeing how happy he was that we are next to him, seeing him so jumping and playing with his friends, we decided that he deserves a chance to live. This is not an act of egoism, is about the power of a dog who can live happy despite his handicap.He is amongst the most intelligent dogs we’ve ever met, you can see his happiness in his eyes.

He is a powerful dog so we do hope from the bottom of our heart that someday he will walk again like before.
He loves to go outside in the courtyard, to run and play with the other dogs. So, I thought that would be a good idea to have a wheel chair. I decided to contact the organization " Eddies’ Wheels" from U.S.A. who, after reading Marc’s Story where very touched, and agreed to donate Marc a wheel chair.
When you look in his eyes you feel that he wants to live, he has so much energy and love to give…………..

Update: Marc is huge now, like a pig……..:) That is why we call him sometimes : Piggy…….. He wants to get all the attention when we have visitors, runs on and on and speaks in his own way. In the evening, when sleeping time comes, he goes in his basket, where he has a pillow and a towl, and waits for us to come to cover him with his small blanket. By his behaviour we feel that he enjoys every second of his life!

We and Marc send a huge thank you to the wonderful people who made all this possible for Marc : Mrs. Andrea and Mr. Gavin Gamby-Boulger, Ms. Dawn Elliot from "Wetnose" and to Mrs. Leslie and Mr. Eddie from " Eddies’ Wheels"