Help Oliver fight parvo

As many of you know, we lost our sweet old man, Homer, earlier this month...just 2 weeks shy of his 17th birthday. As much as his passing broke our hearts, the following emptiness weighed even heavier on us. Our other dog, Rudy, was showing signs of loneliness and depression, as he's had Homer as a companion for many, many years.

Without real planning or intention, we found a sweet yorkie/daschund mix puppy that we all fell in love with, especially our daughter, Alina. We named him Oliver (or Ollie), brought him home last Sunday, January 13, and had 5 days of happiness, puppy playtime, and Alina giggles.

On Friday night, January 18th (Homer's birthday, ironically enough), Oliver started vomiting, lost his appetite, and became very lethargic so we took him into the vet. Our worst fear became a reality when he tested positive for the Parvovirus. We had just brought him home on Sunday and are certain that he came with this infection. We are receiving some financial assistance from where we got Oliver, but we aren't sure how much more it will be. What we have received is only a drop in the ever deepening bucket. The responsibility to save his life lies on our shoulders. He is currently in isolation at a reputable animal hospital, receiving 24/7 care, and costs are climbing drastically. We are nearly in a financial crisis and the only way we are going to have a chance at saving his life is with your help. 

Oliver is fighting, and we are doing everything we can to help him win the fight against this absolutely awful virus. Costs have been about $1,000 a day. We have opened new credit card accounts to help with payments, but we are approaching our financial limit, especially with having recently purchased a new home. We have been visiting him every day with hopes of bringing him home but have left disappointed and deflated each time.

Currently, he is on a slew of antibiotics to fight off secondary infections, antiemetics to help with vomiting, IV fluids and additional IV nutrition. He's received one plasma transfusion in hopes to give him a push towards improvement; we are trying a second plasma transfusion to hopefully give him the extra push he needs. Costs continue to climb day by day and total costs could total over $10,000.  With proper care, his chances of survival can remain high, around 80-90%. Recovery time can very depending on the puppy, but it's not uncommon for improvement to take up to 2 weeks of treatment. We desperately want to save our poor puppy's life. He didn't choose to get parvo, and as his advocates, we're fighting as hard as we can for him. 

Without any help we are going to have to stop treatment and take him home where his chances of survival will drastically decrease to around a 10-20%. I have a hard time asking people for money, but in this situation, I'm running out of options. If you can help us save Oliver's life, please donate in any way you can. If you can't donate, please share, say a prayer or send good, healing energy Oliver's way. 

Our minds are blurry and our hearts are broken. Alina asks every day when her "little buddy" is coming home, and we can't confidently give her an answer right now. We so desperately want to Oliver to come home and we're willing to do whatever after care necessary at home to help him fully recover. We are a family of animal lovers -- as our spoiled dogs, guinea pigs, and fish would attest to. Although some may think we're crazy, our pets are our family and we won't give up on them when they're going through the toughest fight of their lives. 

From all of the members of our family, to yours...thank you. 

Love, 

Lynne, Gerry, Alina, and Rudy