#bobbington

Mr.Nyx and his best friend Bobbington!

I wanted to use them to practice a bit of photography

Bobbington is the reason why you see alot of the weird boxes in the bar

That's Robert Montgomery, or "Bobby" to his friends. He is a Doberman Black Labrador cross. He loves his stuffed toy cow. For a dog, he has a curious sense of politeness. He takes care not to knock things on tables and such over with his tail and is careful around children. He knows the command, "Speak!" but if asked to bark indoors, Bobby actually has an "inside voice." He's the kind of dog who will turn into a ragdoll to be played with, and has this weird thing where he loves getting his rump rubbed. I often sit with my legs hanging over one side of an armchair, and Bob will back his butt up into my feet until I concede! He's gentle, quiet, and always seems to know when I'm upset. I've had him for two years of his six, and having had dogs all my life, Bobby is the best behaved, friendliest dog I've ever had the pleasure of being around. I love my dog.

He began losing weight two weeks ago. Three days ago, his neck began to swell and sag, and his face swelled up, too. Having just changed his food to a different brand, I thought it might be allergies, so I immediately switched back his new food for the old and waited a day for it to sort itself out. As the second day wore on, he got a little more swollen and began drinking lots of water. Last night I saw he was having trouble eating and so I examined his whole body. I noticed that the skin on his chest, groin, and above his hocks had begun to sag too. It seemed to suddenly be a huge effort now for him to get up onto his favourite chair, or even to walk up the stairs and that's when it hit me that Bobby probably didn't have allergies at all. He had lymphoma. For those who don't know, lymphoma is cancer of the blood. Once it reaches bone marrow, it's known as leukemia.

I wanted to be a veterinarian, and I have done a fair deal of studying on my own. I am by no means an accredited individual, but I'm more knowledgeable than the average Joe. As a result, I know that Bobby needs to be seen to fast as his condition will deteriorate rapidly from this point on, and I took him to the vet this morning.

I was not surprised that the vet wanted to do a blood panel immediately, and he is booked to have a biopsy on Thursday morning. The biopsy is more to determine what kind of lymphoma it is rather than to establish whether he has it or not. Bobby has cancer of the blood, and we need to determine the best protocol to treat it. 

And here we come to why I'm writing this.

I got Bobby when I had a stable job and income. That changed, but I love my dog and he was healthy as a horse. I could still afford to feed him, so my dog stayed with me. Bobby is insured. However, the clinic needs upfront payment for any procedures performed, requiring us to claim from the insurance company afterwards. Under normal circumstances this would not be a problem, however I am out of work and even with the assurance that the insurance companies will compensate me, I simply can't come up with the £300+ it's going to take for this biopsy in the interim. It just isn't physically there, especially after paying the £139 today for the consultation and blood panel. I also cannot claim from insurance for a procedure that has not happened yet. I just can't pay for this and afford to eat, as well.

It is impossible for Bobby to wait until my finances are better to have this procedure. A patient with lymphoma, if left untreated, has approximately two months to live. He needs this procedure now so we can begin treatment and hopefully send him into remission.

Please help my dog. I love my dog and right now he is suffering.

If you can help, please spread the word. We have a Paypal account open for him.

It is robertmontgomerydog [at] gmail [dot] com.