Hey April, I know all about dog problems and vet bills. My dog Enzo (he's a Cane Corso/Italian Mastiff..lol), is about 5 months old. He's really healthy and full of energy but he has been eating everything he can put in his mouth. He actually ate and passed his whole collar, buckles and everything..lol. Anyway, he was really sick about a week ago and my girlfreind called me all worried, he wouldn't lay down all day and was shaking like your dog was. She took him to the vet and they did an X-Ray, that showed he inhaled a small bone that was somehow pressing against his heart, and he had something in his stomach that he ate. The had to go in with a scope and fish everything out and keep him on intravenous for a couple days. In the mean time they were looking at the X-Rays and noticed he has severe hip displacia??. So that required more X-Rays that had to be certified in order to go after the breeder. We are now waiting to see if he's gonna be ok. He can't have hip surgery till he's 2 years old, and if the results come back worse then we think, we may have to put him down. We're both pretty sad about the whole thing considering he's a great dog and has a great personallity. So that was $5500 in the last month including the price of the dog that came out of my "Cuda Funds", and we may have to put him down.
I wouldn't think twice of paying a couple hundred dollars a month to keep poor Enzo going..lol, but may not get that lucky.