Here is one of my favorite stories about a dog that Secondhand Hounds has helped:

"Zippy came to SHH when a friend of the rescue saw a dog staggering along a road, dragging his hind end and thought he must have been hit by a car. Zips, a 3-year-old chocolate lab/pit bull mix, dragged himself home but SHH found out who owned him and someone checked on him. When they saw Zippy was chained to a tree in the freezing March rain, covered in ice and shaking with cold, they were able to convince the owner to surrender him. He was so grateful to be in our volunteer’s warm car that he snuggled between her and the seat of the car on the way home. When Zippy finally was brought to the vet, they discovered that he had Grade IV luxating patellas (his kneecaps were behind his knees) along with other orthopedic deformities. He was able to use his left rear leg, but just dragged the right one and mainly depended on his front legs to get around. Over the course of a few months, he saw a half-dozen vets and all but one said he was hopeless and should be put down, despite the fact that he was one of the happiest dogs I’ve ever seen. His back legs just didn’t work well. However, he went for a consult at a specialty rehab center and they said he had a good quality of life and a low pain score. The vets at the University of Minnesota were willing to try to basically reconstruct his formerly useless right leg, but it would be extremely expensive. With the help of SHH and Modern Life Photo, raised the money for his surgery and he got it in June of 2011. Within 6 weeks of the surgery, with extensive rehab, he was walking on all 4 legs for the first time in his life!"