This is my girl Ms. Olive, a rescue from BARCS in Baltimore, and she really needs your help. Beginning Sunday morning the 21st, she had a very swollen neck. As I was frantically googling "dog swollen neck," I noticed that she had just streams of saliva flowing from her mouth and that she was having great difficulty eating or drinking anything.

I'm not a vet, but it seems the most likely cause of this is something called salivary mucocele. It's a swelling of one or more of her salivary glands. While this is apparently not painful to dogs, it does require immediate treatment because it makes it almost impossible to swallow anything, both solids and liquids.

The treatment is surgical removal of one or more of these salivary glands, and while it's not super expensive, it's not cheap either, and it's certainly well beyond my means at the moment, especially if more than one gland has to be removed. From what I can see, the potential low-end costs are 400-800 dollars, the high end is closer to 1,500.

Regardless, I have to get her to a vet ASAP to get this figured out and get her the treatment she needs for whatever this ailment may be because not only is she obviously miserable, she simply cannot eat enough to sustain her and, more importantly, she can't drink anywhere near enough water to stay sufficiently hydrated.

It's... really scary and I hate it.

We could really use your help! If you can chip in to help us get her well, we will love you forever. If you can't, we'd be so appreciative of you sharing with your networks.

I've just got to get her to a vet as soon as possible and you can help make that happen!

P.S. Every last penny we might raise beyond what it costs to get Ms Olive well will be donated to BARCS here in Baltimore, MD.