please signal-boost

[ryanleeds]

Please refer to this update!

I have raised enough to ship Cordy.

I am a 23-year-old trans man who is currently homeless in Los Angeles, CA. I had to get out of Iowa City, where I was staying before because of several suicide attempts that made it impossible for me to work. As I wasn't working, I was unable to pay rent. I moved to LA because there were more resources for homeless youth than in Iowa City (one shelter) and because I was planning on moving in with my girlfriend in August who was going to move back to Pasadena. I am currently working on getting SSI, but I don't know when that's going to come through. A month? A couple of years? It's impossible to tell.

I had to leave my dog in Iowa City with my SO because I took the Greyhound out to LA and there was no way to get into a shelter with her. The plan was my SO was going to be moving out to San Francisco in August when the lease was up and they would, if I paid for the extra gas and day of the U-haul, bring my dog with them to LA.

That plan is no longer viable. My SO will not be able to get to San Francisco in August and will not be able to take care of my dog in their new apartment, as sneaking in a 60 pound barky dog to a small apartment is not a good idea if you value your housing.

So I have two options. Give up my dog or raise the money to get her shipped to LA.

When I say my dog is my life, I mean it literally. I'm severely bipolar and during my depressive swings I get very suicidal. She has been the last thing I could hold onto to keep me from killing myself so many times. When my SO and I would be talking about my suicidal thoughts, they would give up talking about them and my friends and focus on Cordy. I am all she has. She was trapped in a bathroom for most of her childhood and forced to have two litters of puppies before she turned 2. She was on the 24 hour list at a kill shelter. When I met her, she came over and put her head in my lap. I named her Princess Cordelia, from King Lear, because I knew she would never lie about how much she loved me.

Not only can I not handle losing her, I can't imagine what putting her in a new home would do to her. My dog has as many problems as I do. She acts out, is afraid of tile half the time (and the oven), and aggressive to other animals. It took her months for her to warm up to me. I'm not sure she can handle changing homes again. She's also a large adult dog. The chances of her being adopted are slim.

I am trying to raise enough money to get her shipped to LA. What that means:

I need to take her to the vet and get a health certificate.
I can't find her vaccination records, so she needs a new rabies shot.
I can probably ship her for $302.81 via American Airlines.

ANY donation can help. I need my dog. She needs me.

My paypal is yandoryn (at) gmail (dot) com

I don't know what I can offer you in return, but I will forever be in your debt. And Princess Cordelia will be as well. (Although, if you leave me prompts, I can write you things!)

Edit: Thank you so much for all of your generous donations.

I will already be able to cover the cost of the kennel, the vet visits, and part of the shipping cost.

Edit 2: People have asked for pictures of the princess, so have some!

Comments

[theignorantfool]

Best of luck.

[ryanleeds]

Thank you so much! Things are definitely looking up so far.

[magistrate]

Agh. >_< I really wish I'd been able to get established out here faster and not throw everyone's plans into disarray. Hope you're able to raise enough.

[ryanleeds]

Don't stress about it! People have been very generous so far, and I have a lot of people who've been willing to reblog this.

[avia]

I signal boosted you on Tumblr! I really hope you get enough. <3

[ryanleeds]

Thank you so much ♥

[squeemu]

D:!

Do you happen to know if there's anybody in the Lincoln area-ish who could... I don't know, drive her closer to you? Maybe we could get a personal moving system set up. I'll be going through Iowa City to Lincoln in late June, so I could in theory be that link.

[ryanleeds]

I'm really not sure. I don't have a lot of contacts out in the mid-west. I might have found a cheaper way to ship her (via American Airlines), but I need to get more info first.

[squeemu]

Signal boosted via tumblr; hopefully it will help spread the message!

[ryanleeds]

Thank you so much. <3

~we should talk more

[thetidebreaks]

Spotted this through tumblr, and I'll post this up in my journal as well in a bit. Sorry I couldn't give more, but know my ten dollars is also sent with a whole lot of good vibes. Good luck with everything.

[ryanleeds]

Thank you so much! Every little bit counts and helps me get my Princess back to me.

[crows]

Have you contacted airlines as well? Originally thinking I was going to need to have Venus shipped back to AK from LA for a while, and I looked into it a little. Obviously, my 6 pound cat is a lot smaller than Cordy, but I know the service exists and throwing a couple wildly guessed-at numbers into the calculator on the American Airlines site returned a significantly lower figure than that (you'd need to get a kennel and vet stuff for sure). Anyway, just didn't know if you'd looked into it that way or if any other airlines offer pet shipment services? If other folks weren't able to get her to CR to the airport, I could do it, if that ended up being feasible.

[ryanleeds]

My mother brought up the idea and originally I thought that I needed to be a passenger on the flight to do it. I've found out that's not the case and that it will probably cost me between 200 and 300 dollars to ship her cargo. As soon as I can pin it down more, I'm going to change the total I need. I already have bought the kennel and am having it shipped to L so that they can make sure Cordy gets used to the new kennel.

Basically, I need to poke around the AA cargo site a bit more, figure out how I'm going to get my money onto a credit card so that I can ship her. L said that they would most likely be able to get her to CR, so if that falls through it would be lovely if you could get her there.

The biggest favor you could do for me is call around and find out how much it will be to get Cordy a rabies vaccination and a certificate of health at the various vet clinics in Iowa City. (As I'm not actually getting her help, I'm not really particular as to where she goes -- the cheaper the better.) Someone stole my phone, which makes it REALLY difficult for me to do that. (And I know it's really hard for L to make phone calls, so I don't want to put that on her.)

[crows]

I can look into that; it might be a week or so, right now we're juggling some pretty significant familial implosions and my mom is in town (separate issues). But I can roust about after what it would take to get her certificate and stuff. Send me her particulars? (Age, breed, that kind of stuff? I guess?)

[ryanleeds]

She's a five-year-old (turning six next month) Australian Shepherd/Chow Chow mix. I'm not sure how much she weighs right now, but I think it's between 60 and 70 pounds. She has no chronic health problems and is slightly aggressive towards other dogs, so should not be held in the waiting room while other dogs are present.

Thank you so much! I hope everything goes well (well, as well as it can) with your family situation.

[thiefofvoices]

I can generally restrain Cordy pretty well around other dogs, if her last vet visit was any indication. :P And, you know, other dogs wandering into the yard/being in the neighbors' yards. It's just a matter if their owners listen to me when I say she's not good with other dogs and that they should keep their dogs from sniffing at her.

[ryanleeds]

Yeah, I've had that problem with people being idiots around Cordy. It's really annoying. Especially when they get angry when she gets aggressive. It's like, "I TOLD YOU."

[magistrate]

I could have details messed up, but doesn't PayPal give you the option to have a debit card through them?

[magistrate]

...today is the day I commentspam you because I can't edit. <_<

https://personal.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=marketing_us/debit_card

[ryanleeds]

Unfortunately to get the debit card shipped to me, I have to have a credit card so they can compare the addresses.

[ryanleeds]

Yes, but they require you to have a credit card so they can verify your address.

[magistrate]

Well, that's completely bizarre.

[ryanleeds]

Yeah. I used to have a paypal debit card, but it's expired and lost now, so that's out. To change my address I'm required to give them my credit card information. Such bullshit. I'm thinking of calling them when I have a phone to see if there's a workaround, but I hear paypal is not very good with phones.

ideas for you

[snufflesdbear]

For getting Cordy to you - have you considered an animal transporter? They will pick up your dog, and through a series of hand offs, get her out to you via personal cars. Usually done with shelter to adopted pets, but I may know some who would make an exception. I can look into it.
Also, I boosted about a foster home for Cordy on FB. I have a good sized network of people there who will hopefully boost the signal. Would you be okay with me taking one of the pictures of Cordy and doing a write up that would make it easier to crosspost on FB?
I am Snufflesdbear on FB, if you have an account there and want to check me out.
Oh, found you from a signal boost on Copperbadge.

Re: ideas for you

[ryanleeds]

I've looked into some animal transporters I've found via an extensive google search, and they cost nearly $1000, unlike American Airlines who will ship her for a little over $300, something I can definitely afford. Or are you talking about something different? If you find something that's cheaper than AA, I would love to hear about it.

Thank you for boosting the signal! I'm hoping I won't need a foster home -- since posting everything I have found out that I may be getting into an apartment sooner than I thought. But if I can't figure out the pet deposit by then, obviously I'm going to need a foster home until I can get that money together.

I would have no issues at all with you taking a picture of Cordy! She'd probably love it too, considering how much she loves attention.

Thank you so much for helping me with this! I've been in some really bad spots when I keep thinking I'll be losing her, but wonderful people like you keep me afloat.