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Help Phoebe The Therapy Dog!!!!

I hate begging for money, but this is a worthy cause.

Phoebe is a certified therapy dog and the mascot for WHO@-KTD (Working to Halt Online Abuse - Kids/Teen Division).  WHO@-KTD is an all-volunteer organization - we help online victims of harassment and bullyng for free. Phoebe not only goes with me to schools to teach students how to be safer online, but she also goes to York Hospital in Maine every Tuesday to visit patients, plus other events as they come up, as well as the Tools for Life program the Salvation Army does to teach adults how to be safer online. Phoebe has traveled throughout New England, and as far as Pennsylvania as the Cyber Crime Dog! Her tagline: Phoebe sniffs out cyberbullies!

This is why she needs your help now:

She suddeny had a seizure on Sunday, April 3, 2016 at around 830 at night. Since she had never had one before, we thought she had some food caught in her throat. It didn't last very long, maybe 20 seconds and she was fine afterwards. She was good the whole next day, her usual perky self. A little after 430 pm, she had another seizure. While I held her and tried to calm her it stopped almost as quickly as it started. She got up, a little wobbly, and walked around. I got her some water and she began to seizure again. My husband was plowing (Spring snowstorm) and he met us in the driveway to take us to the vet. They were already closed, so we had to go to the emergency vet. We are severely strapped for cash - we are two months behind on the mortgage (hardly any snow this winter meant no work for my husband) and have to pay federal taxes and just didn't have the $1500 the ER vet wanted for a complete blood workup and leaving her there for a couple of days (or the extra $2500 for a catscan and other tests). So they did what they could, charged us $135 with the caveat we would take Phoebe to our vet in the morning. We hadn't even gotten in the truck when she had another seizure in the parking lot. We rushed her back in and we had to pay another $540 for them to keep her overnight and stabilize her. I had to run to the nearby Walmart to buy her insulin (instead of driving home in the snowstorm and back which would have been over 45 minutes) and left her there. We picked her up this morning and were told we owed another $40. Got her to our regular vet, who went over all her food, treats and water we give her. Phoebe doesn't steal food from the table or counter (she never has, even when we've left things out) and there is no rat or mouse poison outside and she doesn't go into the garage where Chris does his engine work. So we are clueless what is wrong with her. The vet isn't sure it's her diabetes and that it may be a brain problem, which we hope it is not. Her blood glucose level is normal, so we brought her home. She ate dry food, drank her water and is seemingly normal. We bring her back to the vet tomorrow for another blood check at noon. Today's visit cost us $98.00 for a total of almost $700. This is on top of the money we still owe for her cataract surgery from this past June.

If you can donate, please do. Please share this as well. We don't want to lose the house - I don't know where we would go.

If you donate $100 or more, I will send you a signed copy of True Crime Online, my latest book and a mini Phoebe (a husky Beanie Baby with blue eyes just like hers), plus a copy of my next book which is due out later this year - Cyberbullying and the Wild, Wild Web.

If you don't feel comfortable donating here, you can send it via a check/money order made out to Jayne Hitchcock at PO Box 782, York, ME 03909

The original reason I started this was to raise money for her cataract surgery which she had last year.  We thank everyone who donated for that, but we are severely short to pay that back on top of the recent vet bills.

Some background on Phoebe - she used to be a sled dog in Canada for the first three years of her life (2006-2009). She was one of the lead dogs. They lived 24/7 outside in a chain link fenced in area chained to a big blue barrel. We think she was abused. The couple who owned her team and two other sled dog teams divorced in 2009. Three women from New Hampshire drove to Canada to rescue all three teams.

Only three from Phoebe's team, named after the characters in the TV show, "Friends," were socialized enough to adopt out (the others were kept by the woman to use on her own sled team).

My husband found Phoebe on Craigslist. My vet suggested I take her everywhere I could to socialize her. It was like having a giant puppy - she had to learn to go up and down stairs, that beds were good, toys were fun and yes, that snack was hers and hers alone. I soon discovered she was not only extremely gentle, but patient. I got her certified as a pet therapy dog and the rest is history.

And here is why we started this GoFundMe page originally:

Phoebe was featured on a local TV news show on May 13, 2015 and later that week suddenly developed cataracts. She went in for cataract surgery on Monday, June 1, 2015. She is nine years old and has a lot of years left in her, so we bit the bullet and decided on the surgery. It cost us almost $6,000 total (surgery and associated costs such as blood work, medicine, etc). We filed for bankruptcy three years ago and until our debt is paid off (four more years) we are forbidden from getting any type of credit card, including CareCredit. So, we borrowed the money. We had to pay upfront for the surgery and other costs, so we  need to pay back the money to our borrower (who we gratefully thank).
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Donations 

  • RainbowCats x11
    • $70 
    • 8 yrs
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Organizer

Jayne Hitchcock
Organizer
York, ME

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