Join Patricia in Phoenix's Recovery Journey

Hi! I’m Patricia Tschanen and I’m raising funds for my puppy Phoenix.

You might have heard of Phoenix, the rescue distemper puppy that I adopted in January? We are going to face some very high costs for her dental treatment and many friends have encouraged me to ask for help and start a “Go Fund Me” page. So here I go, not feeling very comfortable doing this but it’s everyone’s free choice to support or not, right?

Here is Phoenix’s story:

Phoenix and her five siblings came to our place just before Christmas last year, at the age of 6 weeks. From the very first moment I fell in love with that little black girl, that my sister said when she saw a picture of her, had the saddest eyes she had ever seen in a puppy. I don’t know exactly why I fell in love with her, we were up to foster puppy #58 with that litter, so it’s not that we fostered for the first time… I just knew I was going to keep her.

After 10 days they got their first vaccines and shortly after they all became quite sick with runny diarrhea, fever and runny

eyes and mucus out of their noses. I went to see the vet multiple times with the whole litter of six and later again and again with just Phoenix once her siblings moved on to the next place. (Where they got tested and were diagnosed with Distemper and unfortunately all put to sleep.. :( which is still a very traumatic experience for me).

Once I knew she had distemper I did endless reading on that topic, even though every professional that I talked to had only

little hope that she would survive. There is no cure for Distemper and it was eventually confirmed by another vet, that the

puppies got the virus from their mom’s placenta.

Phoenix started showing severe neurological problems after the second distemper vaccine and when she had her first seizure I was so desperate that I contacted a Homeopath from Australia that was obviously specialized in distemper

treatments with natural remedies. Worth a try, and we started her on different remedies after a long assessment with the

Aussie-Man.

For a short time it looked like she might get paralyzed in her rear end, she walked and fell, walked and fell again, started head wobbles and shoulder twitches. I spent endless hours doing physio work and massages with and on her and way more

hours reading and figuring out a supplement plan for her – she is still on all of that to date. Lots of emotional up and downs from being hopeful to crying my eyes out because it looked so often that we are going to lose the battle.

But her health improved by the week, all the playing and running around with her bestie Q, our 5-year old Aussie must have done a lot of positive work to the healing process as well.

One thing I read again and again was that if a puppy has Distemper before it has its adult teeth’s, it will have severe dental

issues. And she has….

But she is also super itchy, which is obviously also a neurological problem, so another vet visit, another supplement…

Mid April we went for another vet visit for a distemper testing and on April 23 we got the call from the vet, the test came

back NEGATVE, Phoenix is DISTEMPER FREE!!! I couldn’t stop crying for a long time! Such great News!

Unfortunately all the neurological and dental damage is still to deal with. After a great conversation with my vet she

referred us to a dental specialist in the City, which we had an assessment on May 6. She explained all the options, also the ones that are no options ($$$) but came up with a great treatment plan. It is necessary that we have to do something as there isn’t fully enamel building on her teeth which can cause terrible long term damage and severe pain. Today I received her estimate and it is not terrible but just so much money that I finally agreed to ask for help. If you can and you feel like helping us, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Patricia with Phoenix