Animal rescue is one of those endeavors that often force you to experience the extremes of human emotion. One day you are on cloud 9 because you just found the perfect home for that 13-year-old dog no one wanted or that 3-legged dog everyone passed up at the shelter or you get an email from someone who adopted a dog from you telling you how wonderful their dog is and how grateful they are for their new family member. Or you get a picture that let’s you know that skinny, mangy, stinky puppy you took from some loser at a car shop is now happy, loved and living a great life.

And then there are those days when you wish you were like so many others who simply don’t care as much about animals or who can turn a blind eye to the realities of unwanted companion pets. Those days when you have to make a tough decision, a decision someone else should have made but chose to pass the buck instead. Yesterday was one of those days. Sadly, this was not the first time in my almost 10 years of rescue and if I continue doing rescue, I am sure it will not be the last.

I am sure there was a time when someone cared a great deal about Chloe; at least I can only hope that was the case. But whoever her last owner was didn’t care enough to do right by her in the end, or for quite a while it seems. She was not Chloe’s only owner; we know she got her from someone else “several years” ago. In those several years, she took Chloe to the vet two times and the record indicates that both times she “declined” much of the vetting that was recommended be done. Sometime before Thanksgiving, she took Chloe to a kill shelter because Chloe had an “eye infection.” Luckily for Chloe, a caring volunteer took Chloe to her vet; she would have otherwise been euthanized at the shelter given her health and age. The vet found out that the eye infection was really glaucoma and the eye had to be removed. She also had “dry eye” in the other eye. We don’t know how long Chloe had been having problems with her eyes but untreated glaucoma can be quite painful, as can dry eye.

The volunteer at the shelter who took Chloe to her vet for treatment had been out of work for over a year and could not afford to pay for Chloe’s eye surgery so she reached out to the rescue community and her plea ended up in my inbox. I posted Chloe and her situation on my Facebook page and some wonderful folks stepped up to donate funds to pay for Chloe’s surgery. Several people even expressed interest in adopting Chloe. Before committing to taking Chloe into my rescue, I talked to her vet to get more details about Chloe’s personality and health. I was told that Chloe was 6 years old – chances are she was quite a bit older, probably closer to 10 – and that other than her eye issues, she was in good health.

The volunteer who rescued her from the shelter offered to foster Chloe until transport from North Carolina could be arranged. Chloe did well while in her care, she was eating fine, her eye healed quite well, she got groomed so she was looking much better also; things were looking up for Chloe. Now we just had to work out transportation. A couple of weeks later, I was able to arrange transport for Chloe thanks to a wonderful network of volunteer transporters.

She arrived in Philadelphia safe and sound, came to stay with me for a week or so until I could get her into her foster home. While she was here, Chloe was doing fine; she was eating, adjusting quite well to being in yet another new situation. My plan was to have her health further evaluated, to take her to the eye specialist to find out just what was going on with her remaining eye, get a better feel for her personality and then find her a suitable home. Unfortunately, fate had a different plan for Chloe.

I took Chloe to my vet for an exam and full bloodwork. My vet detected a heart murmur and felt we should do x-rays of her chest and abdomen along with the bloodwork. The x-rays were not encouraging, her lungs did not look too great and neither did her kidneys and liver. The next day when we got the results of her bloodwork, we found out that her white blood cells were very elevated. Chloe was obviously fighting off some major infection but nothing was obvious from her exam, x-rays or bloodwork. The next day we also got the results of her urinalysis. That wasn’t so great either. Chloe had several abnormalities in her urine, there was blood in the urine and she was leaking protein, a sign the kidneys are not working properly, along with a few other issues.

We started Chloe on antibiotics and discussed a treatment plan. We ordered some extra bloodwork and were going to do a bladder x-ray to see if she had bladder stones. But before we could do that x-ray, Chloe started having other problems. She had stopped eating and no matter what we offered her, refused to eat anything but a bite here and there. But more concerning, she started having trouble breathing. Even when she was just resting, her breathing became labored.

We took Chloe back to the vet. By then, her chest had filled up with fluid and her chest x-ray looked much worse than it did even the week before. The vet drained her chest, hoping that would help her breathe easier. The fluid had blood in it – not a good sign – and sadly Chloe was still struggling to breathe normally. My vet suspected some kind of cancer, a mass in her chest but she had no way to diagnose that accurately as the x-rays were not conclusive. The next day, we scheduled Chloe for an ultrasound with a cardiologist. I knew it was not good news when I got a call that night from the cardiologist. Chloe had a lung mass and nothing that could be done to fix it. Her chest was full of fluid again even though it had just been drained the day before and not much to be done to make her comfortable.

The next day, I talked to my vet who by then had already gotten the report from the cardiologist. I was hoping that there would be some way to keep Chloe comfortable and pain free if even for a few more days, it is never easy to make those “decisions” no matter how inevitable they seem. But my vet – who is typically very hesitant to recommend euthanasia and will try all she can to prolong a pet’s life – convinced me that, in Chloe’s case, that would not be the humane thing to do. Chloe was very uncomfortable, not being able to breathe properly is not ever a good thing and that would only get worse as the weekend progressed. So, as difficult and sad these decisions always are, I agreed to let Chloe go.

I am so sorry Chloe. I wish your story had a happier ending, I wish the people who had you before could have found a way to take better care of you, I wish they would have had the courage to keep you until the end and held you in their arms when it was your time to go, every dog deserves that.

The best I could do was to end your suffering, to let you go on your way in peace, in a warm and loving place, at least you didn’t die in a shelter. It is a small consolation, the only one I can hold onto to help me get through these heartbreaks. May you rest in peace dear Chloe, you were a sweet and beautiful dog and even though we only knew you for a short time, we will not forget you. You have gifted me with another piece of doggie heart, a piece that will join all the others that have gone before you – in my heart – until it is my time and hopefully will rejoin you all.