Hi! My name is Tracy and I am fundraising for our dog, Coda.

Coda is a 3 year old husky-poodle mix that we adopted from a humane society shelter in Oregon in July 2020. I grew up desperately wanting a dog but have always been allergic to them. I so wanted to adopt a dog in need that I would check all the local shelter sites daily for years, waiting for a hypoallergenic dog to be listed. I applied for many different dogs as soon as one would be listed, but they were always already adopted. One day, in the middle of the pandemic, Coda became available at a shelter three hours from where we lived. I sent an inquiry and we drove three hours one way to meet her the next day. She was scared, skinny, dirty and WAY bigger than we were imagining, but it was love at first sight. She ran right to us, sat down, and wouldn't leave our side.

She's been a healthy, happy dog and our constant companion. She suffers from anxiety so we go out of our way to never leave her alone while we work. That is not an easy feat on the salary of dancers, but we love her so and we want her to be comfortable and unafraid. Coda is the sweetest, most gentle dog I've ever known, and she has taught us so much about love. She makes us laugh every day, and my most used phrase is: "Oh my gosh, look how cute she looks!"

Suddenly, this past Friday, she began to show signs of sickness and loss of appetite. I spent the day at the vet paying for expensive tests that showed nothing was seriously wrong. She declined all weekend and, by Sunday night, her symptoms had gotten much, much worse, and we knew something was really wrong. She was up all night Monday night vomiting and expelling blood. She was holding her body in weird positions and became too weak to walk so Jim carried her to the car and we took her in to see an emergency vet this morning (Tuesday), where she was wheeled in on a gurney for fluids and diagnostics.

As of now, it looks like she has Addison's Disease, which is an immune–mediated destruction of adrenal tissue. Addison's disease is most commonly found in female dogs aged around four years old and poodles are a breed prone to it. The good news is that it is common for dogs to recover from an Addisonion episode and they can live healthy, typical lives with consistent medication. We are doing everything in our power to help this happen, especially because she is still so young. Right now she is still hospitalized because the vet has not been able to stabilize her yet to treat her. We are desperately hoping that she pulls through.

We both work as dancers and educators and we are not even remotely in any position to pay for the massive vet bills that are mounting by the minute. It is a horrible feeling to see her so very sick and also know that we are looking at a total cost of no less than $8,000 just to get her stabilized to where she can begin the treatment that will let her stay alive.

If you are able to contribute to Coda's medical fund, even a small amount, we would be so extremely, from the bottom of our hearts, grateful. Any money will go to paying off the bills from her current hospital stay and help pay for her medication. We put the entire up front cost onto our credit cards today because the vet wouldn't start to treat her until we approved the charges. It may seem silly to some that we agreed to pay this kind of money, but our hearts wouldn't allow us to give up on her and the vet really feels that she has a shot at recovery even though she is gravely ill right now.

Thank you for reading about our "baby" and for any kind of contribution, be that financial help or good thoughts sent her way. I will update this page as she (hopefully) improves and I hope to bring you good news.