Hi, my name is Eire, and Medusa is my 6 year old puppy.

On Sunday, December 14, 2025, I noticed that Medusa was acting a little off. She’s usually a very happy, welcoming, friendly dog, and on that day, she was acting skittish like she was hurt and didn’t really want anybody around her. Throughout the day, I did multiple lookovers on her and couldn’t see anything that was wrong with her. She didn’t have any wounds or anything that was visibly upsetting her. A little later on in the day, she was offered a treat, and when she went to grab it, she yipped a little bit. That’s when we noticed that her front left incisor was very clearly agitated, the gums were red and swollen, and her tooth was loose to the touch. I’m on the board of directors at a farm animal sanctuary, and I called her usual vet to get an opinion on if a toothache would make her act so strange. She immediately confirmed my suspicions and recommended that I get an appointment for Medusa to get the tooth pulled.

The next morning, December 15, I called about 20 different vets in my local area trying to get price quotes on what a dental extraction would be for her. All the vets local to my area were quoting around $1500, and unfortunately, I’m not in the best financial position so the fear was quickly setting in that I was going to be a mountain of debt. Luckily, through the connections that we have in rescue, we were able to get ahold of a vet office about two hours away that we have a good rapport with who had availability the very next day, and the price was significantly cheaper. All said and done the price that we were quoted was $712.33, reduced down that far because of our 501(c)(3) discount. The next morning on the 16th we loaded Medusa in the car at 7 AM to drive from Yucaipa to San Marcos to have her at the vet by 9 AM.

As of writing this, it is December 17, and Medusa did get the tooth pulled, got the abscess that had formed flushed out, and got a full dental cleaning. She’s on antibiotics and mild pain medication and is feeling much, much better.

I have attached photos of what Medusa’s tooth look like the day we noticed it was bothering her, the invoice itself for full transparency, and the x-ray of her mouth showing that the tooth was broken into two pieces under the gum line and the dark spots surrounding it showing the damage that the abscess had done.

And while this is all amazing and I’m super thankful that I was able to not only get the dental procedure done for Medusa but also get it at a reduced price, as previously stated, I’m not in a great financial position. I had to put this all on my only credit card and now have over $700 in debt that I can’t afford to pay back for the foreseeable future. I know that it’s asking a lot after I’ve already been given so much, but any help towards paying this debt off ensures that I have this same backup should I need to take her to the vet again. Thank you so much in advance just for reading this. I really appreciate my community and the people around me.