West Nipissing resident Jennifer Rivet is hosting a GoFundMe fundraiser in hopes of raising enough to have her cat Luca’s hip replaced. The procedure is costly – ranging around $5,000 per hip – and unfortunately, Luca may have to have both replaced.
“I’m trying to do my best, but financially, I can’t do it alone,” Rivet said. “Luca is a beloved pet who has had a rough go lately.”
Only two months ago Luca’s hip fractured which required surgery. Last week his owner passed away in a tragic accident. The owner, who lived in West Nipissing, had two other cats. A family member was able to find homes for two of those cats, but people were wary of adopting Luca due to his recent hip surgery.
The family member was unable to care for Luca, and if a home was not found, “the other option was to possibly euthanize him, so I agreed to take care of him myself.”
Luca now has another fracture requiring surgery on his other hip. Rivet believes the new injury is from the added strain on his side caused by the first injury to the other hip.
Rivet is a veterinary technician. Luca’s in good hands, and is in good spirits despite his pain, but the cost for this surgery is beyond Rivet’s current means. It’s a specialized procedure, only performed in a few places, and where she works does not offer the service.
Luca is a Maine Coon cat, “a bigger cat,” and that first hip surgery didn’t take too well — “there’s basically no joint left, it is mostly muscle holding it together.”
“Ideally in a perfect world, that hip would have surgery again, but that’s even more money,” Rivet said. “Later down the road if I can do the other one I will.”
Luca is from Ukraine, although Rivet is unsure about the details on how he arrived in Sturgeon Falls. “But I do have his passport here.” The cat is 17 months old.
The GoFundMe campaign launched two days ago and has raised $655 for the cause.
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
