06/25/2016
All for the love of animals in need! Amazing people!!!
One of my goals for this page is to articulate, in some way, the reality of what we do in rescue and what the animals we care for experience. I'd like to think that you all experience to some extent what it's like to do what we do. The highs can be intoxicating but the lows can be soul-crushing.
This week started out like any other week. Dogs needing rescue from shelters. People wanting to adopt dogs. The usual. The week turned extraordinary on Tuesday when Duck entered our lives. As many of you know, some paddlers rescued this dog from a river where she had been trapped for many days and she was near death*. So many people just happened to be where they needed to be to get her out of that river and to safety that I truly believed that this case had the touch of the divine in play.
I like to think that if I work hard enough and organize everything just right that I can will a dog to survive. This is the ultimate in hubris of course as there are some things that are simply not possible to control and it is the height of arrogance to assume that I have that power. When Duck arrived, she was in shock, she was emaciated, she had a ruptured mammary tumor and pyometra and she was septic. Any one of these things can kill a dog, but I decided then that this dog would live and I would simply make it so. I have ultimate faith in our vets and in science and medicine and we would simply take each problem one at a time. She made it through surgery on Wednesday and I was optimistic that we had turned the tide.
It was not to be. Duck died this morning from septic shock caused by the raging infection she arrived with. Despite her incredible will to live, her body simply could not take any more. I am grateful to so many people - the girls involved in her rescue, the strangers who helped put her in the canoe, Katy and Jan who moved heaven and earth to get her to the vet and our amazing vets Animal House Veterinary Clinic. I also thank all of you who helped us try to save her.
Short though her stay with us may have been, this has in some ways restored my faith in people. It is not every day that a group of random strangers comes together to try to save a dying dog and as devastated as we are, I choose to see this as a sign that not all is lost.
I leave you all with this image of Duck as she was paddled to safety. I do not want anyone's last image of her to be one tied to wires and machines. I want to remember the miracle of her finding comfort in the closeness of a random human who cared enough to try to save her. Au revoir Duck. We will see you on the other side. My specific condolences to Jan our Operations Manager and Katy our Kennel Manger who were deeply affected by this. We could not have asked for better people to shepherd the dogs in our care.
*You can see the full history here: https://virtualfluffies.com/2016/06/21/dog-left-to-die-in-the-river/
