Help Louie's beloved pup Jaspen

Hi friends of Louie and animal lovers. As you may know, Louie hates asking for help. But honestly, even though he hasn’t reached out to ask, he needs you now.

Louie’s pup Jaspen has been sick since late February, first with his right eye rolling to the side, then respiratory issues started with blood showing up from his nose. Louie’s vet gave Jaspen antibiotics at first, which helped for a few days, but the symptoms all came back, and the vet said they didn’t have the equipment to more accurately diagnose what is happening. Louie then took Jaspen to a different vet, one with excellent equipment and services, and fortunately also with a sliding fee scale. But even so, this is all still expensive. And now that vet has said the next step is a CT scan.

You need to understand, Louie’s animals are family to him. In fact, he lovingly refers to them as his kids. They keep him whole. Louie used to have a service dog (his beloved Chip), and Jaspen was actually meant to be his next one, they just never ended up completing the service dog training.

Seeing Jaspen in pain and discomfort is breaking Louie’s heart, and he is desperately trying to get an accurate diagnosis and then treatment. At the same time, as all pet owners know, just paying for diagnostics alone brings sudden and large bills - most of us don’t have those kinds of funds just sitting around. Not to mention the expense of whatever treatment follows. (For those of you who might be less familiar with Louie’s current situation, he is living off the minimum disability from the state right now, plus odd jobs he gets. So he doesn’t have much left over to cover emergencies like this.)

Louie gives so much to the Twin Cities community. You may have seen him over the past many years volunteering his time as a photographer documenting social justice marches, rallies, and events. On top of that, Louie gives funds to friends’ fundraiser campaigns when he is able. This GoFundMe is a chance for Louie’s community to rally around and give back to him. Please reach into your heart and wallet to help with Jaspen’s vet bills. Please give what you can – any amount will make a difference. If you can share this GoFundMe, that would be amazing too!

Please know that we don’t yet know all the diagnostics that will need to happen. We hope this GFM goal will cover it all. If it does, wonderful! If it doesn’t, we will increase the goal. We will not let Louie and Jaspen down.