SAN ANGELO, Texas — San Angelo came through for Maggie.
After a brutal attack by other dogs left her very close to death, her only hope was the sort of help that involved four digits, a comma and a dollar sign, something most pet owners don’t have just lying around all in one place.
“Maggie’s owners reached out to us through that program last week,” PAWS Executive Director Jenie Wilson said. “Maggie was at home and somehow had gotten into a confrontation with two neighbor dogs and they damaged her pretty significantly. She had a couple of nicked arteries, so a lot of blood loss. So they reached out to us and immediately we got her into emergency vet care at Southside. And her bill, just to get her stabilized, to stop the bleeding, was $1,100.”
But thanks to the Compassion Fund at Concho Valley PAWS, and the kind community members who regularly replenish it, Maggie is expected to see many more days, chase more tennis balls, and presumably be showered in love from her owners for the indefinite future.
The Compassion Fund is “comprised of donor dollars specifically to help owned pets in medical crisis. The fund provides for veterinary care for pets in need of urgent, life-saving treatment,” according to the CV PAWS website. “This fund is for life-threatening emergency situations like sudden onset of serious illness, dogs hit by cars, injured in dog fights, etc. The purpose of this fund is to prevent families from having to euthanize a pet for a treatable illness or injury due to limited financial resources.”
Maggie isn’t the first, and unfortunately won’t be the last to need the resource.
“So that’s what our Compassion Fund is about, it helps several hundred dogs every year,” said PAWS Executive Director Jenie Wilson. “We see everything from dogs who have gotten away from their owner and gotten hit by a car, dogs attacked by other animals, cats attacked by other animals, and sadly we even see animals that have been hurt by humans, maybe gunshot or arrows. So we treat them. But the Compassion Fund is set to help people in a crisis situation they were not anticipating because the cost of vet care in an emergency like that can be quite high.”
Although Maggie isn’t completely out of the woods yet, and still in a lot of pain, her prognosis is good.
"Every time we use the compassion fund, if we don’t replenish those funds, we can’t be there to help the next dog, so it’s kind of an ongoing fundraising effort asking the community to come together, and we were very blessed that the community stepped up and we raised over $2,000 for Maggie, which is phenomenal because all of her care has been covered up to this point," Wilson said. "She’s been transferred over to Western Vet Hospital, where she’s still receiving treatment for her injuries. The main issue that we have with her is managing her pain, it needs to be managed by IV pain meds right now because she was in pretty rough shape.”
If you’d like to donate to the Compassion Fund, visit the PAWS website.
