Now that’s puppy love!
Teacher faces £20k bill for op to save pet... and is ready to remortgage her home to pay for it
A TEACHER could be forced to remortgage her home to raise £20,000 for her dog’s life-saving treatment.
Nicki Dyson is desperately trying to find enough money for leg surgery which will prevent three-year-old chow chow Narla from having to be put down.
The pet, who Miss Dyson adopted from travellers two years ago, suffers from elbow dysplasia on her front legs.
The condition causes her bones to rub away the protective cartilage – resulting in bone rubbing against bone when she walks.
Narla is on painkillers and walks with a limp as a result of the condition, and an unconnected issue with her knee on her back left leg.
Miss Dyson, 31, has set up a crowdfunding page on website Just Giving in a bid to raise £20,000 for the complex surgery, which would see plastic and metal plates inserted at Narla’s front elbow joints. The procedure costs £8,000 per leg, with extra money required for scans and after-care.
Miss Dyson has already spent £6,000 treating the condition – with the bulk of the money going on an unsuccessful operation 15 months ago to remove bone from Narla’s front legs.
But her £60-a-month pet insurance policy has a £7,000 payment cap for each condition, meaning Miss Dyson must now raise virtually all the money she needs to treat Narla from scratch. Miss Dyson, a secondary school science
‘I will fight for her to the end’
teacher from Hull, said she will go as far as remortgaging her own home in order to save her dog.
She bought her three-bedroom house from her parents for £150,000 after they moved to Spain in October 2017.
She said: ‘Narla’s pain is manageable, she is on painkillers that help her. She can get out into the garden and have a sniff around.
‘For the moment, I can see she is happy. Despite everything she is always wagging her tail and smiling this funny smile she has.
‘But I want her back to full health. She is so placid and gentle, she didn’t have a good start in life and I’ve always vowed to do everything for her that I can. While there’s something I can do, I will.’
Narla, who was born in Hungary, already needed treatment for other minor problems after Miss Dyson adopted her in December 2016. But the following summer, the cruciate ligament in her back knee snapped. She had an operation and recovered but still limps on that leg.
But her clean bill of health didn’t last long. The dog suddenly stopped walking in winter 2017, after which a vet diagnosed elbow dysplasia. Although the operation to remove bone fragments in January 2018 alleviated Narla’s mobility problems for a while, she fell ill again last May.
Miss Dyson said: ‘Over time Narla will get worse, our only option is to operate. I would not be a resposible owner if I were to leave her like this. If the operation is not a success then we will have her put down, and I just can’t contemplate that. But you can’t have a dog who has the use of just one leg.’
She added: ‘It is heart-breaking because Narla is so friendly and has given me so much. I will fight for her to the end.’
Narla’s plight comes after a Money Mail investigation revealed that pet insurers made £425million after claim payouts last year, selling policies worth £1.2billion. The pet insurance industry is on course to hit £2billion by 2023. Around 45 per cent of the nation’s households have a pet, with more than half covered by insurance.
But calls to the Financial Ombudsman about the policies have soared 113 per cent in five years. Money Mail found that the small print in one major policy restricts treatment cover to £500, when surgery can typically cost £1,500. Owners can, therefore, be left trapped after making just one claim because other insurers often refuse to cover pre-existing conditions.