Hello kind people!

 

My name is Jenna, and my partner and I are starting this GoFundMe for our dog Pepper, who is a 2 year old mixed cattle dog/rottweiler who we adopted from the Calgary Humane Society back in February this year.

 

Earlier in October, we took her into the 24 hour vet hospital because she was oddly lethargic, not eating, and drinking heavily. She is normally a very active and playful dog, so this definitely stuck out as concerning to us. After a 3 hour wait, the vet could not find an issue with a physical and rectal exam, but noted that she did have a fever, and recommended he keep her overnight to do blood tests and ultrasounds. They found out that she had what they called a "septic abdomen", where a bunch of bacteria infested liquid was surrounding her liver and belly. They hooked her up to a drain and an IV.

 

The next day, we learned that Pepper had lesions growing on her liver and needed emergency surgery to clear them. She had the surgery that evening. During the surgery, the vet took a portion of a lesion and her liver to biopsy to figure out what might be causing the issues. He also mentioned, because of how many lesions were present, he was unable to get rid of all of them, as he could not remove any more of her liver tissue safely.

 

At this time, Pepper's fever was still present and not going down. Rather than wait for the biopsy results to come back, they started her on a few antibiotics, a feeding tube and some pain medications to hopefully begin to treat what was going on.

 

A couple days later, the vet called us in to talk to us in person. The results from the liver lesions biopsy came back, and unfortunately Pepper was diagnosed with Echinococcus Multilocularis, a rare (where we live) disease from rats or wild dog feces that carries a dangerous tapeworm parasite that causes cysts to develop on the liver, and can spread to other organs. With this diagnosis, the vet told us there were only 2 options for her; undergo lifelong treatment with Albendazole, which is a medication that is both expensive, must be shipped from the US, and is unfortunately toxic specifically to the liver. Treating the infection would not cure the disease, but simply attempt to prevent any additional cysts from forming. This treatment would greatly affect her quality of life. The other option was considering euthanasia.

 

Pepper is our first dog. We spent years saving up to responsibly adopt one. And an additional 1+ years searching and applying to adopt one. She is incredibly special and loved by us. We couldn't consider putting her down without trying treatment first, so we opted to get the medication shipped in, and monitor her closely, with ultrasounds every 4 months for the rest of her life.

 

With all these veterinary bills for her surgery, ultrasounds, medications, feeding tube, draining tube etc. the vet bill came to just over $12,000. Luckily, I had gotten pet insurance when we adopted her, just in case. However, this insurance, despite being the second highest level, only ended up covering $5,000 of the cost. The remaining $7500 was paid out of pocket through credit.

 

With GoFundMe fees, and her ongoing Albendazole treatment each month, we are hoping to raise some money to cover our expenses for her, and we appreciate any and all donations from kind people who are also animal lovers, and who know the joy and love of having a dog in their life. Thank you for listening.