Greetings from Shaka Surf!

I hope that you’re having a wonderful day and taking a few moments out– wherever you are– to enjoy the sunset every night.

I’m writing today to fill you in on some perturbing news that has befallen us here in Playa Hermosa.

Some of you may know Lady, the little dog with the giant Laird Hamilton neck.  She’s a great dog—an excellent alarm, a sweet companion, and queen of the rancho.

Well, something strange happened about three weeks ago.

Nobody really knows how, but a few of our guests found her crying in the woods.  She was able to limp back to Shaka, but one of her legs wasn’t functional and she was obviously very injured.  Within a half hour, she was completely paralyzed from her mid-section down.

We called the vet who took her back to the clinic and kept her for five days, treated her with painkillers, examining her injury, and hand feeding her to nurse her back to health.  X-rays revealed that she has a lesion on her spine, causing inflammation, pressure in her lower lumbar and making it impossible for her to walk.

After a few days at the vet, she began to regain her strength so we brought her back to Shaka where we set up a little area for her with food and water and clean towels.

And we waited.

The vet couldn’t really shed much more light on the problem.  There was no break, no severed nerve, and yet, she couldn’t walk.

Here’s what Lady looked like this morning.

‘If she was a bigger dog with more weight to carry around, I would recommend euthanasia,’ mused the vet.  But, since Lady is so small and spry and has started scooting herself around with shaky little arms–and she’s got a good appetite–and is using the bathroom regularly, the vet had one other suggestion.

It was a long shot, but she had seen remarkable success on other animals with it.

Acupuncture.

There was a human acupuncture therapist in Santa Teresa who collaborated with another veterinarian healer in San Jose to start treatment on her immediately.  Lady showed significant early progress by starting to wag her tail a little.

Right now, we remain optimistic.

The thing about acupuncture, though, is that it has to be performed on a regular basis.  The therapist recommends at least thrice-weekly sessions for two to three weeks.  The sessions aren’t that expensive—but they’re not that cheap.

Funny thing is—Lady isn’t even technically our dog.  She actually belongs to the local neighbors—and believe it or not, has an entire other name in Spanish, something like Avarcelina or something—but she always felt like our dog because she spent so much time at the camp, looking after the guests and keeping the riffraff at bay.

We know that Lady has brought a lot of love and laughter to us at Shaka and all of our guests—so I guess we’re just writing today to appeal to all of you who have spent some time with Lady to donate a couple bucks—not much, just like $5-$10 bucks—to see if we can complete the therapy and give her the best shot she can get at full recovery.

Or, if you’ve never met Lady and don’t care at all, that’s totally fine too.

But if you’re interested in helping out little Lady, please PayPal $5-$10 (or heck, $2-3—whatever you feel comfortable with) to:  Shaka Surf Camp (Frank Bauer) email  shakacr@gmail.com.

This isn’t a scam, and we won’t ask you again, but we wanted to just let everyone know what was going on and give you an opportunity to help out if you wanted.

Meanwhile, the air is thick and sweet with rain, the roads aren’t as dusty, and the swell arrived on Thursday, so maybe things will be better tomorrow…

Pura vida!

Shaka Surf

Lady, receiving acupunture treatment. Initial progress looks good.