It was a terrifying moment in the middle of the night that revived Bruce Wahlers’ belief in his community.
“The only horrible point of it was the clicking of the gun,” said Wahlers. “If that never happened, all of this beautiful stuff might not have been triggered.”
Around 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 22, an armed man broke into Wahlers’ Calgary home, shooting him in the foot and through each leg. Wahlers’ Jack Russell terrier was shot in the head as he tried to protect his owner.
“There’s so much miracle stuff that happened, that I didn’t lose Zeus,” said Wahlers. “His strength carried me through … he came close to me and he guarded me while he was in that bad of shape.”
The bullet entered Zeus’s head near his eye, went into his jaw There was no surgical option to rebuild, so part of Zeus’s face was obliterated during the invasion.
“He never left my side,” said Wahlers. “He kept looking at me with his good eye and it was almost like he was saying ‘You good?’”
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Wahlers’s roommate called 911 and first responders arrived moments later. He says the paramedics started working on his legs while an officer grabbed Zeus and took him to the emergency vet clinic. Wahlers says Zeus was in surgery before he was.
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“(The vets) never stopped working with us,” said Wahlers. “They did a lot for us … I would sell everything to pay the vet bill.”
It was 7:30 a.m. when Wahlers’ sister, Laura, got the phone call saying her brother and his dog had been shot. At the time of the call, she didn’t know if either were alive. Once Laura was at the hospital and knew Bruce was in stable condition, her attention turned to Zeus, and where he was.
“I dug my feet in and was on Zeus patrol,” said Laura Wahlers. “(A vet tech) was going through all the details of where he was and what needed to be done.”
It was at that point Laura received a quote for Zeus’s emergency surgery and she knew the family didn’t have the funds to pay. But she wasn’t willing to let her brother wake up without his best friend. With the help of one of Bruce’s friends, Laura launched a GoFundMe campaign that raised nearly $9,000 in one day to cover the vet bills. It was a community response that touched her heart.
“The action of one man created this cataclysmic event of graciousness and humanity at its best,” said Laura. “Right from Bruce’s interactions with his caregivers to the people at the VCA Emergency Animal Hospital.”
Two weeks after Bruce’s terrifying wakeup call, he and Zeus are back home recovering.
Bruce and Laura are choosing to focus on the positive, rather than the terrifying home invasion. They point to the exceptional care Bruce received: from all of the first responders, to the officer who took Zeus to the vet, to the veterinary staff who gave such good care to Zeus, and especially the network of people in Bruce’s life who offered support when they needed it most.
The experience has inspired the siblings to find ways to give back to the community, planning fundraisers to help other pet owners in need of emergency vet care.
“We have the choice to be involved in our community and to feed it with love.”