Kind hearted Edinburgh couple’s plea to help injured puppy

A three-month old puppy that was brought to the capital after being severely injured in a’ hit and run’ collision in Athens has undergone the first of a number of operations to help her walk again.

An Edinburgh based couple, Charalampos Spanias and Maria Kontostergiou, rushed to the dog’s assistance from a nearby restaurant and took Molly to an emergency vet where it was established that both her hips had been dislocated.

After flying back to Edinburgh, Charalampos and Maria had to self-isolate for 14-days during which time they arranged for Molly to follow them by road.

After arriving in the city further tests revealed that Molly required at least two more surgeries and multiple physio sessions in order to recover.

Unfortunately Total Hip Replacement (THR) surgery which would be the ideal solution can’t be done due to the severity of Molly’s injuries but instead she will have a femoral head & neck osteotomy (FHNO) on both hips with two-three months’ time between them, depending on how well the recovery from the first operation goes.

Molly had her first right hip operation yesterday and she will start physio sessions in 10 days’ time, then hopefully, in about eight weeks she will undergo a second operation for her left hip.

In addition, a vet has proposed the total reconstruction of Molly’s left knee after her hips have healed.

Charalampos is a postgraduate student at the University of Edinburgh studying Strength & Conditioning and his girlfriend Maria is currently studying Law at the Open University and the pair currently reside in Piershill. They moved to Edinburgh in 2018 and are not eligible for Credit Free whilst pet insurance companies won’t help because it is a pre-existing condition.

The kind hearted pair have instead set up a fundraising page to help pay for Molly’s treatment and readers can donate here.

So far £2,860 has been raised of the £7,000 target. Regular updates will keep you informed of Molly’s progress.

Earlier today Charalampos told the Edinburgh Reporter: “At the moment, Molly is at the vet clinic and I will pick her up at 4:15 pm this afternoon as she had to stay there for monitoring last night.

“The vet told us that the operation was successful and that Molly is awake, eating and moving around, so everything seems good so far.

“For the next 10 days, she will be on restricted short walks using a walking-assisting sling for her back legs to allow her to go to the toilet and after that, she will start physiotherapy sessions and putting some more weight on her operated feet.

“ Ideally, she will recover in the next 6-8 weeks, and then we will have to arrange the same operation for her left hip. The same procedure will be done post-surgery, and finally, we will have to deal with her right knee, which needs a lot of work, probably a total knee replacement.

“The vet instructed us to get her maximum 15 minute walks so far. To be honest, she was a bit scared the first couple of weeks and she struggled a bit to walk outside and was constantly pulling to go back home. As she was very afraid of buses and loud noises.

“Now she is getting used to the environment, with us home and her routine so she is more comfortable in her walks and she knows that we will go to Baronscourt Park where there are a lot of other dogs and she walks happily there.

“She is usually scared of other dogs; she wants to meet them, sniff them, play with them  but she gets totally submissive when a dog approaches her; no matter big or small. She was a stray and she probably had bad experiences with other dogs back then, but she will get more confident with time.”

Charalampos’ experience helping Molly has motivated him to consider a change of career. He added: “I always loved animals and have on the back on my mind to work with them, and the incident with Molly gave me enough motivation to try and do it now!

“As a result, I applied a couple of days ago to be trained as a veterinary nurse next year at the College of Animal Welfare. Hopefully, the will accept my application, and I will be able to help animals daily.”