Please help me keep my diabetic dog healthy!

Hey, everyone!

I´m sorry to show off on your dash with another donation petition. I know there are more urgent and relevant petitions lately with the west Europe situation. Sadly, particular crises still affect the rest of us. So here is our story:

This is Simona. My lovely dog. I know what you are thinking right now: “Is a samoyed if you had the money to buy her you have the money to keep her treatment”. And yes, she is a precious Samoyed. But she was not purchased, in fact, I don´t know how was she as a baby even when I´m 100% sure she was adorable and problematic.

We adopted her when she was a year and a half doggy, now she is 8 years old. Her previous home was looking for a bigger place for her because they used to live in a very small apartment and she was a big and energetic dog (we live in a rural area). They knew they couldn’t satisfy all her necessities for her to grow as a happy dog and I´m grateful to them for trusting us to take care of her since.

Besides her, we have a 2yo cat. His name is Toulouse.

He is ok (besides the fact that he is an adorable eye-crossed kitty). I just wanted to show how these 2 get along pretty well.

We almost lost Simona last October when after some bad medication from a vet she started having some problems. We followed the instructions, but she was not getting better, she was really sleepy, skinny (she lost a third of her weight, from 31kg about four months before, to 20kg), was drinking a lot of water, and had no desire to eat.

We decided to take her with another vet and after some checks and ordering some tests the possible diagnosis was diabetes. We almost lost her that day but we managed to follow the new vet’s instructions and when the results were ready, we finally knew what to do.

So she is diabetic, the bad medicine damaged her pancreas forever. The only positive side here is that she does not have Cushing syndrome, which would make things worse.

I learned something during this 5 months: dog diabetes is expensive.

Now is the time to mention, all of this takes place in Colombia. We are Colombians living in Colombia. Here we do not have any kind of public pet insurance and the private ones do not cover anything like this.

She is quite better now. Of course, she will be diabetic her whole life. We have to pinch her twice a day to measure her glucose levels and that way calculate the insulin we have to inject her. To be honest, I don´t know how people deal with dog diabetes in other countries but this is how we do it here:

-Specialized food for diabetic adult big dogs.

-Insuline (and glucose measurement) twice a day before food.

-Lots of exercises.

-Two medicines, one 10 drops in every meal and another one in injections twice a week.

ALT

Why am I asking for economic help here?

As I wrote before, we have to take care of all the expenses. In a regular month (without going to the vet or taking any test to follow up her condition):

1. Monthly food [Equillibrium or Hills for diabetics]: $330.000 / $453.000. (These are the brands available here, she likes Hills more, but is significantly more expensive so we are buying her Equilibrium. I will approximate an average between those two). $392.000 (US$105)

Organic monthly food. With the vet´s authorization, we give her chicken every morning, so she also eats organic food and has more energy for the day. We usually don´t buy this at once but in total is about $50.000 per month (US$14)

2. Insuline (usually lasts about 20 days, so I will calculate a whole vial and half: $78.000 + $39.000 = $117.00 (US$47).

3. Glucometer strips (We buy the 50 strips one, and we use at least 2 per day if there are no errors. So that´s 25 days. To have some margin of error let´s say 23 days. For the 7 days left let´s take 14 strips from another box). $94.000 + $26.400= $120.400 (US$32).

4. Medicines (since the dose is different depending on vet´s orders, I´ll assume is one per month even when have been more, but is decreasing now): Drops $84.000 + Vial for injection $115.000= $199.000 (US$53).

Total: $879.000 AKA US$245

You might say “Just $245?, I make this money in a couple days of regular work”, but now is when I want to remind you: I am Colombian, we earn money in Colombian pesos.

Our situation is this: I have a part-time job where they call me only when they need me. I´m searching for a full-time job in what I studied, but is not easy here. On average I make $400.000 monthly, which is a little bit less than half minimum wage (just work for hours). My sister (20yo) had to stop her veterinary studies to work full time and assume most of the expenses. She had a lot of saving for her future, so did I from my previous job, but now we are reaching the bottom of our savings. She makes double minimum wage, which is not bad here for a 20yo.

So, how much is the minimun wage in Colombia? Is US$250.

This means we are spending almost a whole minimum wage just in keeping our diabetic dog in good condition. No extra fancy stuff, the most expensive specialized food, or anything like that. She deserves it but the situation draining us (not to mention the whole painful ritual before her foods).

And this is only the dog. We are not talking about the cat or our own necessities. We are lucky we are not in charge of any kid, but we are the ones responsible for her and sadly our economy barely allows us to save money for future emergencies or anything more than her regular monthly expenses.

(As a side note, the value between dollars and Colombian pesos is not stable, which means the conversion to dollars I did today might be slightly different from what you might find. The Colombian peso is getting more and more devaluated by the time, and that´s part of the reason stuff like this imported food is really expensive for us, I used to buy her $25 good food for 2 months on local brands).

If you have read until here, thanks for reading!

I know a lot is going on out there, but I would really appreciate it if you consider donating Simona at least a little amount. Remember, for us that´s a lot ($1 is -now- just a little bit less than a minimum wage work hour).

The goal is to reach at least US$1200, that way I can buy her specialized food for a year and maybe get some kind of discount. With the food problem solved, we can manage in a better way the other expenses and save some more for vet appointments, tests, and extra stuff we have not even considered yet.

Here is a Drive with the bills (most of them until now, all of them from now on).

And if you are actually considerating donating, here is my Paypal.

Also the goetfunding (which has been on $0 since march 2022)

Have a nice day, and keep being kind and empathic with others.

Here is a Happy Simona to thank you :)

https://paypal.me/SaraG149?country.x=CO&locale.x=es_XC