Indiana Community Rallies Together to Support ITV Adopted Dog’s Surgery Expenses
When you make the commitment to adopt a pet into your family, they become family. I know that we would do anything to keep our dog Molly healthy and happy. She's literally like my baby. And as we all know, babies can get expensive, especially vet visits. I should clarify that you shouldn't take your human baby to the vet...Molly is my dog.
Meet the DeTalente Family
Sarah DeTalente and her family adopted Seger 2 1/2 years ago from It Takes a Village and he is their very first family dog. The folks at ITV told them that it would take some time for him to trust them & learn their routine. But once Seger was comfortable, his true big goofball personality came out.
Something Seemed Wrong
Sarah tells the story of what happened with Seger and how the community stepped up to ensure that their family didn't lose him.
"On January 24, Seger came back in from his morning bathroom break and went to jump on our bed like he had a thousand other times, but he didn’t make it up there so he tried again and this time fell backward. We knew right away something was wrong & got him to the vet that day. X-rays didn’t show much & we were told if it was a herniated disc it would only show on an MRI, but he could have just tweaked his back, we just didn’t know.
We tried exercises, steroids (which definitely made a difference), and aqua therapy. After trying every else we could & seeing he still was struggling with his hind legs, we decided to have the MRI. It showed that the disc had herniated & gone into the spinal cord and even adhered to part of the main blood vessel that runs down the spine.
Thank God for our vet here, Dr. Bryan Helms & staff, and Seger’s neurologist, Dr. House, and her staff in Nashville, for giving him another chance to live his best life ever. He had the disc removed on May 10, 2023, and is recovering very well & ahead of schedule.
The total cost of all of this has been a little over $12k, which I completely understand, yet it was shocking. A dear friend of mine reached out to Tangila at ITV and explained to her what had happened and they together decided to start his GoFundMe. We never even had thought about something like that & I struggled with the thought of doing this. I didn’t want people to be upset or think we were wrong for asking for this for a dog, we had some money put back and were just going to take out a loan to pay for the rest. In less than 5 hours the goal had already been met & there was over that in there.
My family and I are just in absolute awe & beyond grateful for the overwhelming kindness & love that has been shown to Seger and our family. He literally is the center of attention around here and we can’t imagine our lives without him.