An Angel Among Us

Whew! What a week it has been. As you know, Chloe has been on our minds nonstop since she was admitted to Lithonia Animal Hospital on Monday with possible kidney failure. That immediate threat was deterred, and she showed signs of stabilizing with lots of fluids and antibiotics. No sooner did we breathe a sigh of relief than we had to make a big decision: She needed surgery. Her rotten teeth were not only preventing her from eating, they were attacking her poor little body with ongoing infections. If they weren’t salvaged or removed ASAP, she was not going to make it. Period.

The Decision Before Us

It was a risky and expensive surgery, especially for an “old gal” in her condition. It meant giving her regular anesthesia from which she could easily be revived if things went wrong. Dr. Wright also noted that she is older than the 12 years we were originally told by another vet, so that made things even more difficult. Don’t get us wrong; we believe that every dog has the right to live and be loved, whether they are 15 weeks or 15 years old. We just knew it was a lot to put her through at her age. We couldn’t, however, say that this girl had, had a good life and let it go at that. She obviously had not. She deserved a shot at knowing what love and compassion was.

It was a very difficult decision, but it was Chloe who inevitably let us know she was up for it. Years of neglect and starvation have had no effect on this girl’s spirit. It is larger than life. She simply does not know the meaning of surrender and she wasn’t going down without a fight. After all, she hadn’t survived her past and then death row at the shelter only to throw in the towel like this.

The Surgery

We held our breaths during her two-hour surgery Thursday morning. We were disheartened to hear that she had to surrender all of her teeth (some were so infected, it spread to her sinus cavity), but we were overjoyed to hear she came out from being under within two(!) minutes. By last night, she was up on her feet and creating messes for the poor vet techs to clean up! Poop, glorious poop! This morning, she was so happy to see us, she yanked out her IV. It’s a darn good thing she has been drinking and eating (yes, eating!) and didn’t seem to need that thing for the time being anyway.

She is obviously still in some pain, which is being addressed. She has a long road ahead and lots of healing on tap, but as the work week comes to a close, we are all resting a little easier.

And we don’t regret a thing. She has definitely become a little angel among us.

A Huge Thank You

Thank you to everyone for helping us to save this little girl. There have been so many people involved in funding and supporting this effort, and we want to thank each and every one of you. We were already drowning in concerns and vet bills from Pippa (update coming soon) and Hartley when this little girl arrived a few weeks ago. It has been a very emotional experience full of ups and downs the past month. With that said, please know that every prayer, donation, email, etc. has made all the difference in this fight. We could not have done it without you.

We would especially like to thank Cara Thomas, who works tirelessly to help network and rescue Jack Russells on the Georgia Jacks page. She was the one who picked up this starving baby from the shelter on a Sunday and has been with this girl almost every day of her journey with us. Chloe lights up like a little candle when she sees her. Cara is like the rest of us; she doesn’t really want accolades or attention. She just wants to help dogs, period. But we have all been so touched by her generosity and compassion, not only for Chloe but for our rescue in general the past few weeks, that we couldn’t help from putting it into words. Thank you, Cara. We promise we won’t embarrass you again. 😉

Even with some much-needed and promised help, we will be paying on this hefty vet bill for a while. It turned out to be larger than we expected, and we had another emergency this week with little Tyler that we’ll tell you about later. One dog at a time … If you would like to help us reimburse Dr. Wright and his staff for all of their care and consideration on this one, you can send a check directly to his office below. Please note that it’s for Georgia Jack Russell Rescue’s account. You can also donate to Chloe online using one of the buttons below.

Lithonia Animal Hospital
2015 Rock Chapel Rd.
Lithonia, GA 30058
770-482-2966