I Need Your Help:

On January 31st, we picked up our newest beautiful bundle of joy: Oakbea, the golden retriever. He was perfect and wonderful, especially after losing my beloved grandmother just two days later.

Before Oakbea, there was Jadzia. Jadzia is an excellent dog, well-trained, and highly intelligent. She began service dog training at 15 weeks old. As everyone who reads my newsletter knows, I’m disabled, and I’ve been trying to get a service dog for a long time. Jadzia went through 2 years of intensive training, graduating with a canine good citizen certificate. During that time, she developed resource guarding behaviors. She couldn’t officially start therapy or service intermediate training until she quit guarding. Despite trying for a year to train the resource guarding away, we couldn’t. She was no longer a candidate for service training. Three years, wasted. She’s still a fantastic family pet, but as time passes she still struggles.

In this time, it became even more clear I needed a service dog, as I kept failing medical treatments and cannot take many of the drugs used to treat my conditions due to other complex medical factors.

Enter Oakbea: the sweet golden who has it all. He has the temperament, drive, and intelligence for service work. He began his puppy training at 12 weeks, and we are going through the basic programs before adding service training in September. However, we’ve hit a significant snag.

Last week, Oakbea was diagnosed with osteochondritis dissecans. This condition impacts the cartilage and joints in Oakbea’s shoulders. He is currently limping, and without surgery his legs will be lame. He would lose the ability to walk properly, and develop osteoarthritis of the joints body wide. With surgery, there’s an over 90% success rate that Oakbea could live a normal life and continue service training.

Recovery is tough, with Oakbea having to be crated for two weeks, followed by 4 weeks of contained supervision, and possible weeks of physical therapy. His recovery will be challenging for me to manage, given my own disabilities. The surgery alone is $8,000, not including medicines, supports, therapies, and more.

I don’t normally ask for help. To be honest, my ptsd prevents me from doing so most of the time. I feel immense shame for having needs. I know this is silly, and a defect of my own illogical thinking, but it is no less uncomfortable to ask. Being disabled has humbled me, making me realize just how pervasive ableism is in our individualized capitalist society. Asking for help is almost necessary in today’s world. The other sad reality is that I realized that if we are all lucky enough to age, we all will become disabled. I just got disabled sooner than many.

Oakbea as a service animal would change my life. I could do so much more than I’m able to now. Instead of being isolated and sad, I could be out and thriving. Oakbea won’t cure my disability, but ultimately he would give me freedom. Freedom that most able bodied people take for granted.

Attached below is my GoFundMe link to raise funds for Oakbea’s recovery. If you can’t donate, please at least share. Insurance does not cover service dogs, and dogs who generally come trained cost around $30,000 - this isn’t including the costs of Oakbea’s now needed surgery.

Thank you for reading, for being here, and for donating. I wish I had better news lately, better insights into humanity as I once did. Our family has just been through the wringer the last 6 or so months. I’m sincerely hoping that after Oakbea gets surgery and heals, we will be back on the road to peace. Thank you all again.