PUPPY: Sharing a sad story

Several weeks ago my husband and I were blessed by a new addition to our family. We adopted a 7-month-old puppy from the Humane Society. We named her Keira. For the first three days she was a happy, energetic puppy. We took her to visit our vet and found out she had an upper respiratory infection. We got her on antibiotics to cure it.

By Sunday we saw something was not right. We made an emergency visit to our vet and found out she had internal bleeding due to the spay job the Humane Society performed on Monday. We rushed her to the Pet Emergency for a blood transfusion. She spent the day and night there while we wondered if she would make it. On Monday we got the call — she pulled through and that we could come and get her. She seemed to be pulling back to her energetic, happy self. For the next three days we visited our vet once, sometimes twice, a day due to her respiratory infection. We all hoped she was clotting from her transfusion, and was on the mend.

On Wednesday, we realized again that something was not right. We went in that morning and he took some blood to read her counts. They were a little low but figured her sluggishness and counts were due to her respiratory infection. We came home and within four hours had to return. She was worse than in the morning. We left her with him knowing she was in the best of hands. He took some X-rays and found her lungs full of fluids and was still bleeding internally. She was not able to be put under to stop the bleeding due to the worst case of fluids he had seen in his 35 years of being a vet. We had to make the decision to put her down.

I have let the Humane Society know and their only response was, “We’re sorry, but sometimes that’s how surgeries go.”

We are $700 in debt due to vet bills, supplies and an adoption fee, and have nothing to show for it but a place in our yard and heart where she will be with us forever. She was a true blessing to us, and touched everybody’s heart she came in contact with.

I just wanted to write this in hopes of helping us heal, and to let our vet know we truly love all that he and his staff did for Keira and us.

DEBBIE and DAN LAND

Coeur d’Alene