Hi there. Let me start with a huge THANK YOU to all those who contributed to the GoFundMe page to help us afford a pup for Hayley. We were already looking but when we knew we would have the dollars we put a more serious effort in and have found and ordered a pup. The little girl has a family history of therapy and assistance dogs including her mum who still works for Hope For Our Children as a Therapy dog.
The mum. How Beautiful is she?
Full disclosure so people can know where their money went. Every cent we receive goes into an account called Dog Fund and the money in that there will only be used for dog related transactions. I will continually update this blog with expenditures as they happen.
When we started the GoFundMe page we knew that the pup would be upwards of $4,000 with most being around the $4,500 range. And as of today the GoFundMe page has hit $4,540, which, after fees gives us $4,421.52. We have also had some other wonderful and generous people hand over cash to the value of $1,480 giving us a total of $5,901.52 in our Dog Fund Account (As at 1pm Sunday 29th January). To be honest I am incredibly humbled and a bit emotional about the generosity of people. Friends, family, workmates and complete strangers.
After starting the fundraising, we found the cutest little girl at Cider Fields Labradoodles. We also learnt that she is $4,800. On top of that there is some early behavioural training, vaccinations, microchip, etc and will cost $5,304 by the time we get her. Less the $200 deposit we have paid.
The dad is a good looking bloke too.
The whingey bit. Due to the ongoing but now ended arguments with the previous landlord who illegally refused the assistance dog, followed by and eviction notice at the end of lease. Followed by getting a place who said happy to have you and a dog here, start paying rent this week. We replied, “Can we please have another week?”, the answer, “We can get someone who can start paying this week.” So we paid the rent on 2 properties for three and half weeks. Over Christmas and New Years. Hayley has just started a new school equals all new uniforms required. Basically, apart from the $200 deposit, we have not been able to contribute to the Dog Fund ourselves yet but this is changing.
The happy bit. All that is behind us. The new school is awesome and has shown more care, compassion and understanding by day 2 than the previous place did in the entire year. We have the uniform, we have (finally) had the previous bond returned and things are moving forwards nicely.
The mums get a fresh haircut to keep her cool while the pups are kept at the correct temperature for optimum development.
Hayley’s is the little girl in Purple.
Although I still want to pay back every cent that is donated when I can, the initial expenses are still going to keep things a little tight so I will be keeping the GoFundMe page open for a while. Still hoping to get it up over the $5,000. We will apply to Mind Dogs for training when the pup is old enough and that includes $750 in application fees and testing. Plus we need to pay separately for the training. This has no set number and Mind Dogs have said that generally allow $100 to $120 per training session and approximately 10 to 15 training sessions over a 12 month training and development period. Which translates to between $1,000 – $1,800. Plus a vet check before they will approve the pup to be trained.
So a minimum expense of $7,054 plus the vet, minus the $200 we have already paid over the next few months. We also have about three and a half more weeks before we collect our beautiful girl and in that time I need to puppy proof parts of our fences and side gates. We will need to get bedding, food, leads, council registration and multiple other puppy things. So basically, I will be very surprised if it stays under $8,000, not including food. But so worth it all. Hayley has already named her and the breeder sends updated photos and videos almost every week.
| IN | OUT | BALANCE | |
| Donations | $5901.52 | $5901.52 | |
| Our Money | $200.00 | $6101.52 | |
| Deposit | $200.00 | $5901.52 | |
| Nugget | $5304.00 | $597.52 | |
| Mind Dogs | $750.00 | -$152.48 | |
| Training | $1000.00 | -$1152.48 | |
| Puppy Proofing Fence | -$1152.48 | ||
| Vet Visit | -$1152.48 | ||
| Council Registration | -$1152.48 | ||
| Bed | -$1152.48 | ||
| -$1152.48 | |||
| -$1152.48 | |||
| -$1152.48 | |||
| TOTALS | $6101.52 | $7254.00 | -$1152.48 |
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