Home of the Soul Cookie

[Update 12/27/04: The pups are back home in the UK.]

I’ve never actually met Lee Wilkins in realspace, though we’ve had conversations online and over the phone since we first discussed working on some sort of project together (back before I got the gig at ANG). Lee’s a cool, quirky guy.

And he needs some help.

He’d moved from the UK to the US in May, but had to return recently after his employer dicked him over. That’d be bad enough, right? Well, he and his girlfriend Jenni have had a nightmare in trying to get their two Jack Russell terriers, Alfie and Benson, home too. Why, you ask?

• Delta lied to him about their ability to fly the dogs back to the UK. (It seems that only Continental has the rights or ability to do so at Lee’s local UK airport.)
• The pups are currently being warehoused in a kennel that Lee describes as so repulsive, he wouldn’t put his worst enemy in there. (Though I, personally, am starting to like the thought of locking the Delta Belgiums in there. Irony, thou art delicious…)
• It’s going to cost about US$1500 (~ £850) to get Alfie and Benson home via Continental.
• …and it needs to happen in the next 11-12 days, or one of the dogs won’t get medication he needs.

Doubleplusungood.

And then, even when A&B make it back home, they’re going to have to sit in quarantine for six months. Beaucoup bucks, but at least Lee and Jenni will be able to visit with them.

So Lee’s set up a site, www.alfieandbenson.com, to ask for some help.

If you have a dollar or two to spare, would you consider heading over there and helping out a fellow pet owner in dire straits?