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As
I'm sure, a lot of the rescue
 stories start
off,
"we went to the
shelter...just to look". In the small dog/puppy section
down in one of the lowest crates, just barely noticeable
was this thin tan tail. I squatted down to have a closer
look, and what my eyes met with was startling! Here
was this skeleton with fur wrapped over it. You could
count every bone in her fragile little body. There was absolutely no
muscle on this girl
anywhere. Even just the action of
stepping out of the crate seemed to be more than she could handle. She
was grateful for the attention, which she showed me when her tail gave
me a little wag. Cuddling her, I inquired about her. Her name was Bambi
(Very fitting since she looked just like a baby deer.), and she was a
Irish Greyhound. She had been brought in as a stray. They didn't know if
she would make it or not, and since she had just arrived, she still had
a three day waiting period to go through. Too long to wait with this
one. So, for the first three days, she came here under foster care.
First place we stopped at was the vet, where we found out WHY this baby
was so unbelievably thin. She had a heart problem. The possiblity of her
making it was very slim, but I just had to take the chance.
Bambi never ate a meal alone. Any time she got up, she
had four people waiting on her. She never ate a single piece of kibble
here. Every meal was home cooked with a moist heart diet and vitamins
added to the mixture. She wasn't allowed to jump on the furniture
because she was so fragile, we didn't want to take the chance of her
breaking a bone, or doing more damage to her already weakened body. She
was lifted on and off of the furniture. (She still needed to feel like
she was just like one of the other dogs in the cache.) She seemed to be
making progress. She started to get a little belly on her!
The very next morning, her neck started to fill with
fluid at a alarming rate. She was whimpering, and in pain. I rushed her
to the vet. By the time we got there, only two blocks away from our
home at that time, her head was starting to fill up, too. We hadn't
rescued her soon enough. Her heart was failing. There was nothing left
we could do. It was time to make that final decision. My daughter insisted on being the
one to hold her with tears streaming down her face as she got the shot
that would allow her to go to the bridge.
Even though she was only here for a little over a
week, she managed to wrap herself tightly around our hearts. She just
had one of those personalities. You couldn't help but love her. |
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Bambi
