Ralph’s story

You may recall a post on our social media back in July about a young dog we had in our care called Ralph.

Ralph had been through a lot. He first came to our attention when he was picked up by our local pound after being dumped by his previous owners. He had an ulcerated eye that required surgery to resolve, which he received while still in the care of the pound.

Following this surgery, and a 2 week stay at the vet clinic, Ralph was brought to Blue Cross. Unfortunately, after a checkup with Dr. Carly at our wonderful Vet clinic, it was concluded that the eye was not going to heal and that the best course of action was to remove the eye to prevent further complications.

This is where Ralph’s story took an unexpected turn!

In the middle of this invasive surgery to remove Ralph’s eye, Dr. Carly discovered that Ralph had a bleeding disorder that meant that he bled a lot more than was expected and would need a plasma transfusion to stabilise his condition, that unfortunately, many vet clinics do not carry.

Dr. Carly and vet nurse Georgie rang emergency vet clinic after clinic until they found one that had the plasma that Ralph needed. This is when Blue Cross carer Annabelle and her dad jumped into action. They carefully loaded a still very sleepy Ralph into the car and Annabelle sat with him in the back seat while her dad drove them to the emergency clinic.

Ralph was able to receive the care he needed overnight to keep him stable, and in the weeks that followed, underwent a number of plasma transfusions to normalise the clotting of his blood.

It worked for a short time, and Ralph was able to live a relatively normal life, going for walks, playing fetch to his heart’s content, and playing with his doggy friends. Over time, it became clear that Ralph’s bleeding disorder – which was confirmed to be hemophilia A – was quite severe and he began having internal bleeds that caused swelling in his joints and lead to a lot of discomfort on Ralph’s behalf.

Unfortunately, after trying everything we could, we had to make the very difficult decision that the kindest thing to do for Ralph was to put him to rest. We are all heartbroken by this decision, but are so thankful to have been able to give Ralph the carefree and fun-filled life he deserved to have lived as a vibrant and energetic young dog, no matter how short a time it may have been.

As a not-for-profit organisation, Blue Cross receives no government funding. We were able to provide Ralph with the chance to live his short life to the very fullest solely because of the generosity of our community and the support they provide us.

This is why, throughout spring we will be running an appeal in Ralph’s name to help raise funds so that we can continue to provide care for so many others like Ralph who are so often surrendered when their owners cannot afford their care, and so that we can give them every chance to find their forever homes.

Please help us carry on Ralph’s legacy by donating to Ralph’s Legacy today so that we can continue transforming ‘hard to adopt’ to ‘adopted’.