Veteran travels cross country to get service dog medical procedure

PHILADELPHIA (WTXF) - There's a special bond between a man and his dog. A veteran dropped everything to save his service dog's life.

Army veteran David Broido, from California, is used to his Pit Bull service dog Bones caring for him and helping with his PTSD.

"He has been trained to do stuff like remind me to take medication at night time before I go to bed or occasionally wakes me up from less than pleasant dreams. He's very good at that. Paws me in the face," he told FOX 29.

But now, it's the other way around. David says his best friend on four legs now needs to lose one of them.

"Bones" suffers from osteosarcoma cancer, which requires the amputation of this back leg.

"Pretty much every dog owner's worst nightmare and bad reaction. I turned into a faucet of course and became a mess on the floor," David said.

The former member of the 82nd Airborne Division says he's not working currently and has limited finances so you can imagine his surprise when he says two friends put together a GoFundMe page raising money for the medical procedure outside of Philadelphia at a place with a more reasonable cost than what he was quoted out west. In fact, they made a cross country caravan out of it, hitting the mountains, the desert and riding across the midwest-- fearing it could be their last trip together. 

"In case the worst news was delivered when I got here, I wanted to make sure that we got some really cool adventures so we stopped some places. We saw some people. We had a great time."

That operation happens Tuesday and while both are nervous David says he is forever grateful.

"It's very nice to see how many people have really, it's like thousands at this point, have come together to make things happen for all of this."

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