The Marshalls adopted 4-month-old Banjo, a St. Bernard puppy, as an early Christmas present. Within a week, the Kettering family has paid thousands of dollars in medical bills, an amount that continues to grow.
“It’s just been completely tragic for our family. We were so excited to get a puppy,” Danielle Marshall said.
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The family first met Banjo at the Champaign County Animal Welfare League but that they picked him up a couple days later at a charity event in Columbus.
“We get him in the car, drive him home, notice he’s not doing good,” she said.
They thought Banjo may have been car sick, but then he stopped eating, wouldn’t move and got sick.
“So I called the vet, he tested him for parvo and it came back extremely positive. So that’s when this whole thing started and we took on this very sick dog,” Marshall said.
Parvo is a highly contagious and potentially deadly canine virus.
Marshall said she had a hard time finding a vet to treat Banjo in fear the virus would spread.
“I didn’t really understand the severity of it,” she said. “I was just upset that he was sick, obviously, but then he started talking numbers and 50/50 chance, and I was like ‘Oh, this is huge.’”
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Now Marshall is worried about dogs at the shelter. She said they did give her a list of Banjo’s vaccinations, and that the parvo vaccine was on the list. However, Banjo is not old enough for all of his shots.
Now as Banjo tries to recover in the animal hospital, the Marshalls are trying to come up with a way to pay his $3,000 vet bill.
“They tell you these numbers, and you’re like, ‘OK, do I save this dog, feed my family tonight?’ We don’t have that kind of money to put on a dog. Obviously, we are pulling strings and doing it,” Marshall said.
The family is hoping for another early Christmas present, which is their dog Banjo coming back home for good.
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The Champaign County Animal Welfare League said it offered to take Banjo back and treat him but that the Marshalls declined. The shelter also said the organization has adopted out thousands of healthy dogs and that this is first time a dog that came from their shelter has come down with parvo.
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