I’m so sad and mad and frustrated and empty and all of the feelings.
My favorite puppy died in my arms today. I was going to bring her home with me. I helped raise her. Actually, I helped raise six puppies. She’s the third to die. She had never been a particularly strong puppy, always skinny and a bit weaker than everyone else. But she really started to shine last week—she was eating a ton, she was playful and energetic, and just doing really well. But our place was too cold, so we had to put her in the “quarantine area.” There is no real quarantine area, so it’s a room in the clinic where three cats live (called “the cat room,” naturally) which was difficult because she HATED being in a cage.
Then she started eating less and less, and her poop got worse, and she got skinnier, and today was the weekly vet visit to this bullshit vet who sent her back home to us in TERRIBLE shape. Completely dehydrated—when this dog should have been hospitalized—and were just like, oh yeah, feed her rice. Like nope, sorry, that’s not enough.
She got back here weaker than I’ve ever seen her. She could barely stand up. And then she just declined over the next few hours—it wasn’t long before she couldn’t hold her head up anymore either. We tried everything, but nothing was enough. Then she started screaming, with the energy she had left, which was barely any, and she was in so much pain, and she finally died.
If it hadn’t been for us, this puppy would have died all alone in a cage, probably in even more pain. We tried to help her, we gave her buttloads of subq fluids and antibiotics and pain meds. But it was too late. This is unacceptable and irresponsible, to take on these animals and not even have enough staff members to watch them. This should NOT be a volunteer’s responsibility, and whatever, I’m willing to do it because I fucking care, but these animals, these sick animals, these tiny puppies, would go unwatched for most of the day. The people that actually do interact with them don’t know anything, and have literally no one to tell even if they do notice something off. And like, puppies? You can’t call yourself a shelter and just leave tiny puppies in their cages all the time and not do anything if they get sick. Because “puppies die.” But they shouldn’t have to, not usually.
Since I got here, one beautiful dog died, our three puppies died, another puppy died, and another gorgeous dog and her three tiny puppies all died. Almost all of these deaths were preventable—had they had better care. Simple. Better food, an onsite veterinarian, or at least more staff.
Starting tomorrow, I’m going to be the onsite veterinarian for a week. I am not a vet. I have zero vet experience, other than all the stuff I’ve done here (which, to be fair, has been a decent amount). But there’s no WAY I should have this responsibility of taking care of 300 dogs, giving medication, vaccinations, being the only person fucking seeing if anyone is sick…like, it’s absurd. But it’s either me or nobody at all, and then animals will die, so I’ll take me. HOW IS THIS OKAY AND NOT ENTIRELY IRRESPONSIBLE?
I have so much more to say here but I’m exhausted and don’t have the energy so I’ll save the rant for another time. But basically, we are having to create a database of all the animals here because the owners DON’T KNOW. Like they don’t know what animals or how many animals or any of their histories and it’s a huge unsafe mess. So we are trying to fucking fix it.
I need to wash my hands to get the dead puppy smell off of them.
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