Your Pet Loss Stories

by Dominique Lopez
(Texas)

My family has little income but odd we had many dogs. About 4 then one of them got pregnant. She had 4 beautiful puppies we didn't have the money to vaccinate them so we just took good care of them.(Natural medicine.) We all personally chose a puppy my Mother got the black fluffy puppy, my sister got the white short hair puppy, we gave away the short haired black puppy. Then there was mine, he was the only boy the rest were girls he was the weakest and smallest of the group and yet he was beautiful he was a Shihzu well half.

He had black spots and white fur. I decided to name him James. Every time I would go outside and watch them they would race. James was sadly dead last, he would get tired easily. He would never bark at you, the rest of the puppy's would come and bite your skin, but James he would probably lick where his sisters would bite you, like as if he was begging for you to forgive them.

I then began to notice james had a hernia right over his bellybutton. I knew once we had money to immediately take him to the vet. I was so sure that if he passed away it would be because of his hernia. I was wrong, and I wish I wasn't.

James was finally 3 months old. It was May the hottest month so far. I was about to go to school when I saw one of the puppies had escaped the back yard. I picked her up and took her back to the yard. When I heard my dog Daisy barking like a mad dog. I went to see why. Once I got to her I suddenly knew she was crying for help. James was foaming in the mouth, he looked like his mind was somewhere else. I immediately thought he had gotten rabies. So I took him to my room so he won't affect the other puppies. Not 10 seconds later he had released a bloody stool. Except their was no solid it was a pool of blood. I cried so hard, I saw the pain in his eyes.

I took him to the vet, but in Mexico seeing how I can not afford a vet here. The vet told me he had parvo. My heart broke. I was instructed to give him Pedialyte to keep him alive. The line back to the U.S.A was long and James was slowly deteriorating. 10 minutes after I gave him his last medicine I had him in my arms and he looked at me licked me with all his strength, then he died staring at me.

I cried the whole ride back home. I was told to throw away anything he touched due to how contagious Parvo is for the other puppies. We buried James in my Grandma's back yard. We placed a flag saying James 2/13-5/5 2014. James was a a very special puppy who cared for others even though he was the one who should have been cared for more. No matter how much pain he was in he still cared to say goodbye.