Pet of the Month: Anthony - February

Our February pet of the month is Anthony. Anthony is a disabled dog and his daddy takes good care of him. Even with his disability they still like to help others. They recently raised money to buy toys for the sick kids at the hospital. Read his story below written by Anthony's dad:

Anthony Mater was born with an advance stage of Legg-Calvé-Perthes Disease (LCP), a disease that results in abnormal deformity and disintegration of the hip joint as well as a degenerative bone disease. Researchers suggest that the disease begins with the blood supply of the head of the femur bone. As the blood supply is damaged, the bone dies off. The bone in the femoral head collapses and the cartilage coating of the femoral head becomes cracked and deformed, resulting in arthritis or inflammation of the hip joint, which causes pain and lameness. At just four months old, Anthony underwent a femoral head ostectomy in the hopes to save his back leg. He had to be woken during surgery due to his heart rate being so low. He was in pretty rough shape. I requested to stay with him throughout the night and slept with my head down next to his so that when he woke, he knew that he wasn’t alone and that I wasn’t going to leave him. After bringing him home, I realized he wasn’t using his back leg and he wasn’t getting any better. In fact, he was worse. I was told he had the most advanced case they had seen and that they didn’t understand why he wasn’t healing. They performed more tests, and told me that there was nothing that could be done for him and that he should be put down. I refused. He was so young, and I couldn’t give up on him. There had to be something that I could do. Finally, after countless specialists and many tests, he went in for another surgery. At eight months old, his rear leg was amputated. The loss of a his limb did not slow him down, and he healed well. But only three months after undergoing surgery, he sprained his front leg due to his bones being fragile from the disease and developed seizures. He is now wheelchair bound. He has spent these last two years surviving this disease and overcoming the odds and currently is seizure free. He is so sweet and continues to show me each day that there isn’t anything that he won’t try and do. Anthony keeps fighting and showing everyone nothing will stop him or make him give up.  I have opened up a rescue in Anthony's name to spread love and hope to others. It initially started out as just raising donations for animals in rescues who were at risk for euthanize such as beds, food, blankets toys and money for medical care. We decided that wasn't enough. Growing up in foster care I never really experienced love or had a lot. Anthony has made me realize love is the most important thing and we are trying to spread love worldwide. We now also have recently fed the homeless at the shelters and on the streets. We have worked with our community to raise money for the homeless families, Toys For Tots and the animals in need. This is a huge project and sometimes it's overwhelming without the proper help we need but we have vowed to never give up on trying to help others. With Anthony's Angels we believe it is our duty to love the unloved, help the helpless and to bring hope to the hopeless. If we are not excepting of love we are turning away change. Love changes things. Hope allows us to endure until the change arrives but change only happens by showing compassion, kindness and love. Spread love everywhere for in doing so you may change a life. We hope to change as many lives as possible with our mission of spreading love. Check him out on Facebook and Instagram.