Funds for life-saving spinal surgery required for dog

Border collie, Hope

Team Sasha Dog Rescue urgently require the public’s help to raise more than £6,000 towards life-saving spinal surgery for border collie, Hope.

Hope was found as a stray on the streets of Romania and urgently requires surgery to correct paralysis in her back legs and incontinence.

Team Sasha, based in Castleton, arranged to transport Hope from Romania to England after they saw a video of her on social media.

History is repeating itself for the dog-rescuers Alyssa Parsonage and Paula O’Connor, who went through a similar ordeal with a Husky, Sasha, in May 2016 after they rescued her in Rochdale.

Sasha was underweight, couldn’t open her jaw and had a really low heart rate.

After persevering and raising more than £22,000, Sasha is now happy and healthy.

Alyssa explained: “We changed our rescue to one with medical needs after having Sasha handed to us. She had a fused jaw and was unable to open her jaw to eat. Vets wanted to put her to sleep but we could see she wanted to live.

“We pushed and pushed for her, and now she has had her jaw fixed, a pacemaker fitted and is loving life and living it how she should be.

“We can see the same determination in Hope and have already pushed to get the vets to refer her to a specialist.”

Once Hope arrived six weeks ago, they took her to their vets for x-rays. The couple were then told the dog had a dislocated spine and no feeling in her back end. The vet advised putting the border collie to sleep, as ‘she had no quality of life’.

Alyssa said: “Hope has hope. She wants to be independent and shows signs of wanting to play, if she could. Because of this we wanted a second opinion as we didn’t feel this was right.”

Paula and Alyssa carry out physiotherapy with Hope daily and say she has ‘some’ feeling. They sought a second opinion from an orthopaedic vet, who agreed to refer Hope to a specialist for an MRI in order to operate on her.

The total cost of the MRI and surgery comes to £6,200. The duo have raised the costs of the MRI, which Hope will have on Monday (9 May), but still require the public’s help with surgery costs.

To donate, visit:

https://www.paypal.me/paulaj5