Barney is a 12-year-old Beagle/Elkhound Mix in Broadway, VA, who needs $900 for SX CRUCIATE LIGAMENT REPAIR.

Barney entered my life in Feb. 2010, when I visited Rappahannock County Welfare League (RAWL) in Amissville, VA. My (ex) husband and I knew he belonged with us. We lived in a home in a big field in Huntly, a medium home with a yard in Roanoke, and, after my divorce, a small apartment in Staunton and now in Broadway. He is a happy boy wherever he lives, and always craves quiet outdoor time.

Since the end of my marriage in 2016, it's been just Barney and me. Moby, "Barney's cat", couldn't adjust to apartment life, so he moved in with my parents. But the two are still very close. And Barney and I are inseparable. He lay at my feet when I work from home, he sleeps under my bed at night, and he follows me around during the day. We go outside a lot--his favorite place is nature.

Barney, aka Barns and Barnsworth, evolved from a timid, 6-month-old puppy to the social butterfly he is today. But two things haven't changed: He's the calmest, gentlest dog I've ever known. The shelter workers called him an "old soul," which is the perfect descriptor of his temperament then and now. Barney is also comically stubborn when it comes to where we walk outside. He usually gets his way.

Barney has arthritis, requiring multiple (expensive) meds to walk, play, and climb the stairs to our apartment. But early October his cranial cruciate ligament ruptured. Now he can barely walk, his lame left leg unstable, his right front leg tendonitis worsening--his three working legs can't keep up. His vet, Dr. Reeder, said surgery will return him to the happy, walking, climbing senior he was.

I have a chronic illness that limits what and how much I can do. Working part-time as a registered dietitian helps pay bills, but Barney's expensive meds and supplements is putting me in debt. But I will do everything in my power to make his last years happy ones.