Lady Gaga’s dogwalker ‘humbly’ asks for help after recovery roadtrip hits snag
Lady Gaga’s dogwalker Ryan Fischer was shot by the dognappers. (Getty/Instagram)
Lady Gaga’s dogwalker Ryan Fischer has asked for donations as he takes a cross-country journey to heal from his trauma.
In February, a group of men opened fire at Fischer in Hollywood, Los Angeles, and fled with two of Gaga’s three French bulldogs.
Fischer suffered a collapsed lung as he laid bleeding on the pavement. He was discharged from hospital in March and both pups were recovered.
James Jackson, 18, Jaylin White, 19, and Lafayette Whaley, 27, were later apprehended in April on suspicion of attempted murder and robbery.
Months since the incident, and Fischer is trying to move on by embarking on a healing tour of the US.
Have driven through the States in a rented motorhome for the last two months, Fischer now faces a bump in the road after his vehicle broke down.
He has launched a crowdfunder to raise the $40,000 he needs to get back on the road and finish his six-month-long trip.
Lady Gaga’s dogwalker suffers ’bouts of depression’ as he travels America to move on from shooting
The trip, he wrote on the GoFundMe, is about “strengthening his emotional and mental health” as he takes a “sabbatical”.
He hopes to visit “retreat centres, trauma programs, queer healers, creatives and spiritual leaders” to help him navigate the trauma.
“At times I was scared,” he said of his journey so far. “I was lonely. I felt abandoned and unsupported.
“I had long bouts of depression and doubt and self-pity.
“But those backroads that took me to desert campsites and Walmart parking lots and rest stops and friends and family to New York and back began to help me see why I had chosen to leave the security of the Hollywood Hills where I fought for my life and mobility.”
At the time of writing, Fischer has raised more than $3,600 to replace “Trudy”, his rented 1991 Ford Falcon.
“With no vehicle, apartment, and having run out of savings and surviving on donations from generous loved ones, I am humbly asking for your help,” he added.
“This is not an easy thing to ask, but I have started to realise sharing your vulnerability with others is exactly when radical change begins to occur for everyone involved.”
Fischer was shot in the chest in February and was left bleeding on the sidewalk.
Prosecutors wrote in a complaint filed earlier this year how the assailants drove around in a sedan on the day of the shooting “looking for French bulldogs”.
The three men stumbled onto Fischer, completely unaware that he was Lady Gaga’s dogwalker. After tailing him for some time, they waited for him to go down a quiet side street before pouncing.
Fischer has said he had to have part of his lung removed because of his injuries.
