Support Pickle's Medical Emergency

Hello friends, family, neighbours and strangers!

About us & Pickle

Most of you know me (Alannah), Alex and our dog Pickle. A little over 3 years ago, Alex and I adopted Pickle and brought her home just one week after moving into our new home and neighbourhood! Pickle quickly wiggled her way into not just our hearts but also those of so many in our community through her hyper-friendly, loving, and joyful demeanour, which she has for every human, dog and cat she meets (although she’s still working on those feelings for raccoons and squirrels). Raising a puppy meant A LOT of potty breaks, but it also helped us connect to our new neighbours and community, for which we are so grateful.

Pickle's Background

Luckily, we did get pet insurance for Pickle when we brought her home - but anyone who knows her story knows that we use the insurance to its maximum. Fairly soon after bringing Pickle home and completing puppy training, we realized she was having some challenges beyond normal puppyhood. With the help of her trainers and vet, we started working to figure out what was going on and how we could help her. I could write a book about her medical history, and have spent enough money on her training that my family jokes I have an honorary doctorate in dog training. To summarize, in Pickle's short life so far, she has faced Separation Anxiety, Generalized Anxiety, Frustrated Reactivity, Hip Dysplasia in her right hind hip, Giardia, Inflammatory Bowel Disease and so many changes in medication in efforts to find the perfect combo.

We have been very grateful for our pet insurance given her many conditions, and for previous medical emergencies. Unfortunately, one of these previous medical emergencies occurred less than a year ago when she chomped down a skewer with chicken on it (this happened just a day after we bought a muzzle to deal with her indiscriminate eating). That brings us to why we are asking for support today.

Pickle's Emergency

About four weeks ago, Pickle woke up with a very swollen neck/jowl. Our regular vet did an exam and took an aspiration of the swollen area, but the next day we woke up to increased swelling and intense lethargy. We took her into the ER, where they were able to reduce the swelling and took more aspirations. Unfortunately, both labs came back inconclusive and we had a week until a follow-up with her Internal Medicine Specialist. That week passed without much swelling but Pickle was still not acting quite like herself, being quite lethargic, and getting overstimulated very easily, which occurs when she is in pain. After our follow-up with her specialist the swelling returned and she was booked in for a CT scan, which revealed an internal abscess. They were able to aspirate the abscess using ultrasound to find it and she was started on antibiotics. Our greatest hope at this point is that the antibiotics resolve the issue, but there is still a chance she will require surgery or other interventions.

Why We Need Support

Being the medical wonder she is, Pickle has already used all $5,000 available to us through her insurance for the year thanks to "the skewer incident" and all her specialist appointments and medications. In addition to this, it has been a tough year for Alex and me financially. Alex works in the animation industry, which has taken a huge hit in the last 1.5 years. Alex completed a full-time contract at the end of November 2024, and up until the start of July, we relied on EI and some part-time work for him. At the same time, in January of this year, I started treatment for long-term Lyme disease, which is outside of what MSP covers and very expensive. On top of that, I also have regular treatment for chronic pain and injuries from an MVA, and while ICBC covers a portion of this, there is still a large amount of out-of-pocket expenses.

All of this has put us in the position of finding these recent medical expenses for Pickle a larger burden than it might have been any other year. We want to do everything we can to keep Pickle healthy so we are asking for support from our community. We know it is not an easy time for many folks so we appreciate any support at all, whether it's a donation or simply sharing this campaign.

The Costs

I've attached invoices for all vet visits related to this emergency. All funds raised will go directly to these bills. We'll post updates and may adjust the end goal as needed since she's not fully recovered yet. Total expenses so far are $7,233.10, we've already received some donations in advance of this campaign which we've entered manually.

If you prefer to donate directly, you can contact us for an email that can be used for e-transfers - these donations will be recorded in the campaign as offline donations.

Thank you to everyone in advance for supporting our family!