Beloved Mascot Needs Our Help

Dear dog lovers,

Freya, my dog, my best friend, needs surgery. They're telling me she has a mass that might be cancerous and that it needs to come out. But when they handed me an estimate for $7,000, I spiraled. Caring for her is my one job. And it's one I take incredibly seriously.

You see, for five years, I was a teacher at a Title I school in St. Louis, Missouri, my hometown. As much as I loved it, that last year was too much for me, so I decided to make a big change: I moved across the country to teach at a boarding school in Maine. Everyone in my life thought it was a terrible idea because I would be moving away from all my friends and family. But I knew I would be fine. I had Freya.

I got Freya when I moved into my first apartment by myself. I knew I wanted a pet, and I knew that a dog would keep me from depressive spirals. When I found out that a friend of a friend was rehoming their dog, I immediately wanted to meet her. Freya threw herself up into a hug sandwiched between both my parents, with her head lolling into my hands and her tongue hanging out of her mouth in a big smile. I knew at that moment that this big blonde lug was mine. I was Freya’s fourth home, but she was only a year and a half old. Her life before me had been hard, and I have worked every day since I adopted her to make sure her life with me is the best she could dream of. We go on road trips, we explore nature, I read out loud to her… and apparently, we move across the country together.

Since moving to Maine, Freya’s life has only gotten better. We live in the girls' dorm, and the girls love nothing more than to borrow her for walks, sit next to her in the hallway and do homework, or just come sit on my couch and snuggle with her for a while. She comes with me to field hockey practice, and the girls put her in a practice jersey for games and call her the mascot. She has even made dog friends, which is exceptional because she has always been painfully reactive with other dogs.

But moving across the country was not cheap, and my credit cards and savings have not recovered. And between breaking my elbow and my windshield breaking into huge cracks (separate events), both at the beginning of summer, any cash I had managed to squirrel away is gone.

And now the veterinarian tells me Freya might have cancer and hands me a $7,000 estimate for surgery. No matter how many different ways I look at my various accounts, I just don’t have it, especially not with student loan payments looming on the very near horizon. But I can’t stomach the idea of not tending to the health of my best friend.

So I am reaching out to the kindness of strangers. Because I love Freya too much not to, and because, selfishly, I don’t want to be alone.

With so much appreciation,

Freya and Erin