This is the story of Tom and my puppy Spot’s death. It is detailed and graphic but I feel it is important to show what can happen when you don’t get your pet vaccinated in time. If any current or future pet owners here in Jamaica or anywhere else choose to adopt a pup it is so important to get them vaccinated for their own health and because you never want to go through what we went through. It was heartbreaking and will stay with me forever. So you have been warned, continue reading at your own risk.
I woke up Monday ready to churn out the last of my lessons
for Wetlands Day and looking forward to a great week and a jam packed weekend! Next
thing I know I wake up Tuesday morning to find my dear puppy Spot is very sick
and will not eat or drink anything. This worried Tom and me greatly and we gave
a local veterinarian a call. She told us that no matter what he might have, we
need to make sure he stayed hydrated. So Tom and I hunted down a syringe and
started force feeding him a mixture of water containing dissolved sugar and a rehydration
salt packet from our PC med kit.
We force fed him 40ml of this solution every 2 hours and by
Tuesday evening he was looking much better. His mama stopped by and he went out
to play with her I really thought he would be eating by Wednesday morning but
no dice. I had gotten up a couple times during the night to force feed him more
of the solution and pepto bismol but he still looked pretty sick. I kept in
touch with the Vet but she couldn’t be sure what he had and since she has no
car and is a teacher at the College of Ag, Sci, and Ed. (CASE) she couldn’t
just leave to come check him out. So I hoped he’d be okay, loaded him up with
two doses of solution before Tom and I left for school and headed out. It was
Wetlands day and had I known what I do now, (that he had the Parvo Virus) I
would have re-scheduled or had Tom stay home. But I didn’t know and I was
really nervous because this was the first real day that I was going to teach some
Env. Ed lessons at my School and I really wanted Tom’s help and support.
So we left for school
and hoped he’d be okay till we got home around 4. So we were gone from 8am-4pm
and this took its toll. As soon as I saw him I realized that we never should
have left him for so long. He looked worse than the he had Wed. morning and was
clearly much too dehydrated. I was distraught to say the least and so angry at
myself and Tom for not realizing we shouldn’t have left him for that long.
I immediately gave
him 40ml of the water/salt/sugar solution, and tried to give him some more
pepto bismol but he through it all up not 10 minutes after I gave it to him.
This was a new development and worried me even more. I called the Vet and she
said that she was free after 11am the next day and if we could get him to her
she would look him over and could give him some pain medication. So every 2
hours until Thursday morning at 9:30am I force fed him 40ml of the solution.
Some he kept down and some he threw up. He was still urinating every couple
hours so I felt confident I was keeping him at least somewhat hydrated.
Unfortunately when I went down to hydrate him at 5:30am he
had had 3 bouts of bloody diarrhea. He looked like death, and there was nothing
I could do. My host mom, Miss P, was already awake and came to check on me and
Spot and saw the mess and immediately started helping me clean up. I went to
get Tom and he sat with Spot, while Miss P and I cleaned up the mess. It was
gross and I was terrified and new he was dying but didn’t know what I could do.
We continued to force feed him the solution until we left
for the Vet at 9:30 Thursday morning. We carried him in a Rubbermaid tub on a
bus to Port Antonio where the CASE Campus is and saw the Vet at 11am. (Everyone
on that bus I’m sure thought we were crazy. Most rural Jamaicans just don’t
form any kind of American style attachment to dogs. Dogs are for protection,
that’s it.) The Vet was amazing, she was
kind and gentle and so caring with Spot and with me, bc I was a mess! She
immediately diagnosed him with Parvo, a nasty virus. My heart immediately sank.
I knew if it was a bacterial infection, he could have a chance but with a
virus, it would be a long shot. I’m not normally a negative person, but I don’t
know, I could just tell it was bad, really bad.
So the Vet gave him some pain meds and a prescription for an
anti-nausea medication. Tom then took Spot back home to get him hydrated and I
went into town to the pharmacy to get the prescription filled. This took so
much longer than I thought it would which stressed me out even further because
I wanted to get home to my puppy. I finally got home and Tom said that Spot had
passed one more fairly large bout of bloody diarrhea. Not good. I immediately
got him his anti-nausea meds and he just lay down with the drowsiness they
caused. I continued to sit with him and force fed him one more dose of
hydration solution and just prayed that he’d pull through.
But as we sat there together his breathing became more
labored. I called for Tom to come downstairs because I could tell something was
wrong, but before he could get there Spot’s frail little body seized up and he
yelped in pain as he died from internal bleeding. It was the hardest thing I
have ever had to go through. That poor innocent creature died in my arms. I
felt his breathing and his heart stop and his tiny body go limp. I wept over
him and apologized incoherently. It had taken so long for me to get his
prescription filled and to come home that I barely got to spend 2 hours with
him before he died. I miss him so much. He was an amazing lil pup who showed up
in our lives at just the right time, when I was really homesick and unsure of
what to do at the school. He lifted my spirits so much and brought me so much
happiness and I had failed him. I know hind sight is 20/20 but it’s hard not to
blame myself for his death.
Parvo is a completely preventable if you get your puppy
vaccinated early. It’s a virus that mostly affects puppies and no matter how
much amazing care you provide in whatever country you live, if your puppy gets
this virus it is a 50-50 chance they will survive it. The virus attacks the
lining of the intestines and basically liquefies it and causes the animal to
bleed internally. All you can do to treat it is hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. I
wish I had done a million things differently but there is no way for me to know
if even then he would have made it.
That evening Miss P found 2 shovels and Tom and I went out
back passed the gully and buried Spot deep beneath a tall Mango tree. Tom then
helped my weeping self back upstairs and held me while I cried myself to sleep.
The next morning we woke up, packed, and left for our weekend trip to Kingston.
Rest in Peace Spot. I know you are up there in Puppy Heaven with all the other Puppy Angels with an unlimited supply of turkey neck!
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| The very first day he showed up on our doorstep Nov. 6, 2012 |
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| In January of 2013. Such big boy! |
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