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Community participation has always been and continues to be very important to VSH. VSH feels strongly that the partnerships they nurture with various organizations in the community is an extension of their mission to treat and care for animals who are in need of specialized and emergency care. Below are some of the ways in which VSH gives back to the community: VSH and the SPCA of Wake County have teamed up to provide diagnosis and specialty treatment for dogs and cats with curable conditions that might impede their adoption at the SPCA Curtis Dail Pet Adoption Center. This partnership benefits both organizations and ultimately provides better lives for animals.
For more information about the SPCA of Wake County please visit www.spcawake.org
In March 2006, a female dog was picked up along Humie Olive Road in Apex by a concerned citizen. She was a beautiful, friendly dog with no identification on her but had obviously been well cared for prior to being lost. What makes this case unique is that she had a fractured back leg. Her owners sought the proper medical treatment because she had an external fixator on her leg, which is a system of pins, rods and clamps on the outside of the leg to keep it straight as it heals. It appears that the brace had been on for several months. This type of treatment is not inexpensive so we knew this dog was someone’s dearly loved pet. VSH recently donated $5,000 worth of emergency and specialty veterinary services for the newly formed Town of Cary’s regional K9 officer program. The K9 program encompasses Cary, Apex, Morrisville and Holly Springs. Cary Police plan to use their K9 team to track lost persons or fleeing suspects, search for discarded/ hidden evidence or contraband, detect illegal drugs, search buildings and help protect officers. The K9 team, Cary’s first, is Master Officer Jeremy Burgin and 2-year-old Czech Republic-born German shepherd Max. For more information about the Cary K9 program, please visit http://www.townofcary.org/depts/pddept/k9/k9.htm Ashley’s Angel Fund Ashley’s Angel Fund is a nonprofit organization that provides monetary assistance for veterinary care for dogs with life-threatening conditions in the Triangle and various surrounding counties. The Zach Memorial is also administered through Ashley’s Angel Fund and provides monetary assistance to dogs in North Carolina who have cancer. Ashley was a patient at VSH for several years and had great impact on the staff at the hospital. The staff now honors both Ashley and Zach by submitting current VSH patients for monetary assistance. Because of Ashley, Zach and VSH, other dogs are able to afford specialized care and treatment. For more information about the Ashley and Zach funds, please visit www.ashleyfund.org |
A lot of special people were involved with this dog’s rescue. A concerned citizen saw her on the side of the road and picked her up for fear she would be hit. The concerned citizen put up signs and flyers and placed an ad in the Apex Herald looking for the dog’s owner. She then called her friend, Elaine Mangum who is an animal control officer with Wake County. Together they called and emailed local vets to see if they had performed the surgery on the dog. Officer Mangum then picked up the dog and took her to the Wake County Animal Shelter where Dr. Kelli Ferris and students from the NC State Veterinary School treated her for a secondary infection of the skin surrounding the brace. Dr. Ferris then brought the dog to the Veterinary Specialty Hospital (VSH) where x-rays were taken of her leg and the brace was removed. The fracture had completely healed. An email was also sent to the members of the North Carolina Veterinary Medical Association to see if any of their doctors had performed a similar surgery. VSH then arranged to have the dog’s story profiled on NBC-17 to try to locate the dog’s owner. Unfortunately, the owner was never found but Second Leash on Life was able to foster the dog until she could be placed with a new owner.