Firstly, I must give my most heartfelt best 
wishes to your sister's poor pup. =(  It's just 
dreadful to think that he was left in such a 
condition, and that the person responsible didn't 
come forward to take care of his medical bills..  
With any luck, at least, he should pull through 
it all and bounce back to live a long and healthy 
life.

And, while I am loathe to digress from the matter 
most deserving of attention, that of this poor 
dog's unfortunate situation, I felt I must also 
respond to Anna's post..
Firstly, I second the comments made by Drac and 
Yuuki -- cels are a good source of emergency 
funds for some, but not for all, and I don't see 
why people cannot also come to the message board 
to express their feelings and look for support 
rather than -only- coming to raise funds.

Moreover, since Drac and Yuuki did a better job 
than I could on that matter, I had to respond to 
the following..
~~Yet, there's one half-dirty thing you could 
have done also. It workes here: Say the animal is 
a street punk. Unowned. Treatment free, pet back 
to you if you declare you love that critter... 
That's cheating, but if the vet just gets the 
feeling of having saved a life, that's fine ;) ~~

Please keep in mind that this is much more 
than "half" dirty.  I'm rather shocked it was 
even suggested..  
I don't know about all countries, but at least in 
this countries, veterinarians are -not- that well 
paid.  The feeling of saving a life is a 
fantastic thing, but that doesn't pay the bills 
or put food on the table.  To simply leech off 
the veterinarian is to take away someone else's 
livelihood, and back out of your own 
responsibilities as a pet owner.  If you haven't 
got the cash to take care of your pet (either on-
hand, or that raised by selling expendable 
objects, such as Haruna is doing with her cels) 
then it's my feeling that you probably shouldn't 
own a pet -- harsh, perhaps, but that's reality.
Veterinary medicine is already a profession 
involving a great deal of personal sacrifice; to 
take advantage of a vet's good will in such a 
manner doesn't just mean lost revenue for the 
veterinarian, it means a great deal of expense -- 
the equipment, especially for orthopedic 
procedures, is expensive, and it's highly 
irresponsible to suggest that the veterinarian 
should be stuck with that cost.
Besides which...if you are indeed an animal 
lover, please keep this in mind -- many of the 
veterinarians who offer free services for 
stray/unclaimed animals do so by means of setting 
aside a specific fund for just those cases.  To 
expect free care would be stealing away money 
that would otherwise to go the care of animals 
that genuinely -need- that care because they 
truly don't have any home or family to take care 
of them.

While you may have just been joking about it, it 
struck me as an incredibly thoughtless thing to 
suggest.

~Mala