Crowd funds big love for sick pup

A lot of pet owners are faced with hard decisions when the animals they love, animals that have become part of their families are diagnosed with serious health problems, particularly when those problems prove to be expensive.

Alex Mussini's puppy bull mastiff named Tyson was diagnosed with severe hip dysplasia when it was only six months old and Alex is now faced with spending upwards of $5,000 on surgery or putting his dog down.

"He was giving all the signs and symptoms of hip dysplasia; sitting sloppy, bunny hopping, when he tries to run he gets tired very quickly; he wants to play but he cannot," Alex said.

"We are devastated, we are heartbroken; he is a lovely dog you know, he is a guardian."

Alex could not afford the surgery and was trying to come to terms with the idea of losing his dog when a friend suggested online crowdfunding.

"So we did and we advertised it through social media and surprisingly, on the first day, we had 26 donations from all over the planet," he said.
"We had donations from Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, Canada, the United States and even Guam.

"We had anonymous people chipping in money from one dollar up to $150."

Specialists from all over Queensland started contacting Alex asking for a copy of the X-rays to see what price they could manage on the surgery.

The consensus was consistent across the board; Tyson has two options.

Option one is a total hip replacement, which involves removing the hip and replacing it with a titanium one.

"I was really getting excited about having a robo-dog or a bionic dog, and I was really dreaming of a dog that could run 200 kilometres-per-hour and jump six metres," said Alex.

"But it costs about $8,000 per hip, about $16,000 total, so that was out of the question."

The second option is a femoral head ostectomy which involves cutting the head of the femoral artery, allowing Tyson to live pain free.

"It costs $5,000 and that is why we've lowered the target," he said.
Alex acknowledges that there are many more worthy causes and more important problems for people to put their money towards, but to him there is nothing more important than the life of his pup.

"At the end of the day, Tyson is just a dog, but he is also my dog and he is part of the family, so he is my personal cause," he said.

"We just put it out there to see how many people were willing to help us out and what we found is that Tyson has become a celebrity and amazingly a lot of people with good hearts have come to the rescue."

Tyson's crowdfunding initiative has raised over $3,000 in 10 days. Go to Tyson's crowdfunding page to find out more.

Read the story or see the campaign.