Help fix Lincoln's heart!

Hi, my name is Lincoln! My humans like to call me Stinky Linky. I will be celebrating my 1st birthday on New Year’s Day! I am a mixed breed of Golden Retriever (Mom) and Lab/Newfoundland (Dad).

I have recently been diagnosed with a very rare heart condition called; Orthodromic Atrioventricular Reciprocating Tachycardia. This is due to an extra electrical pathway in my heart, called an accessory pathway. In my case, this extra electrical pathway can conduct in a retrograde direction (from the lower chambers to the upper chambers). This can lead to an excessively fast heart rhythm where electrical impulses go down the normal conduction pathway, up my accessory pathway, and back down the normal conduction pathway. This creates an electrical loop in my heart which can drive my heart rate to beat over 300 bpm (my normal heart rate should be around 80 bpm when I am resting and even when I am active should not go over 200 bpm). My heart is beating excessively fast about 90% of the time. It has been very hard on my body and I have been battling congestive heart failure.

It has taken all my energy and the worst is watching my humans be so extremely sad. I hate seeing my humans sad and I do everything I can to help comfort them in their time of need. My humans are why I NEED to share my story! My humans are my favorite things in the world. I want to be with them for as long as I possibly can. My job in this world is to protect, support and comfort them. I love all the cuddling, fun and playing I do with my human and fur family. I am asking for your help so I can be with them for a long time.

As I have mentioned, I am not quite a year old yet. In the first 11 months of my life, I have been so extremely blessed and loved!! My parents, Paisley and Whiskey, fell in love with each other at one of my favorite places, the lake! Mom had 9 beautiful babies; I was one of them. Our humans couldn’t wait for our arrival! On 01/01/2022 minutes after midnight our Mom, Paisley gave birth to us. From the moment we were born, we were ALL loved and knew our future family members. We all had our new families come visit us on a regular basis. My human family is my Mom (Lisa), sister (Baylee), brother (Brayden), and fur sister (Mia).

From the first day I went home to my furever family, I was needed. I had a job to protect and comfort my humans. See my parents are both calm and loving and they gave those traits to all of us too. We are all therapy dogs to our human families. I started that job on day one with my human sister, Baylee. Baylee had been in the hospital after a car accident and came home the same day I arrived at my new home. I spent every day with her helping her heal.

I spend my days being my human brother Brayden’s buddy. We love to wrestle and play. He always lays with me on the cool floor too. I love when we cuddle.

My Mom, Lisa is my everything. She takes very good care of me. She makes sure I have my chow every day and water. I love my water. I like to make a mess and let it fall out the sides of my mouth all over the floor. Mom takes me for car rides everywhere. I LOVE car rides, it allows me to always be with my Mom.

I love to wrestle and play with my fur sister, Mia too. She keeps me on my toes. She can run really fast!!

I spend most weekends of the summer with my humans, fur mom and dad, and two siblings. They believe that my sister, (Tenney) and I are twins. We are a close family and we all love to swim and play ball (I actually prefer a stick) in the lake. We run and play all over the campground too. Most of my siblings all live close and we try to see each other often. We were hoping to have a first birthday celebration all together but with my heart condition, I cannot visit and play that hard with 6 of my siblings. I would really like to run and play with them all very soon!! To be able to play with them all again, I need a procedure to fix my heart.

The name of the procedure is a radiofrequency ablation procedure, but that is way too long, I just call it a zap zap buzz buzz procedure. This procedure will “ablate” or burn the extra electrical connection in my heart, allowing my heart to function properly. While this procedure is standard in human medicine, Dr. Wright at MedVet Cincinnati is the only veterinarian in North America offering the procedure. It would consist of a LONG car ride to Ohio (wooHOO) to visit Dr. Wright and her team. Dr. Wright and her team have a 98% success rate with this surgery. If successful, this procedure would fix my heart, allowing me to live a long, happy and healthy life. I would be able to fulfill my role of taking care of my family. However, it is an expensive procedure and my family has to travel very far with me to get this procedure (865 miles to be exact). So, I am asking if you could please help me and my family? No help is too small, even sharing my story will help!

With wet kisses,

Lincoln