Today I am sad for I had to euthanize my littel five month old English Pointer Riley, who I had just rescued from the Animal Shelter. He had been rescued from a very bad situaton where he was malnurished, kept 24/7 in a little pet carrier. When I got him he was all skin and bones, couldn’t fully stand up straight, and was scared to death of everything, plus was very sick.

I took him to the vet because he had drainage from hims nose and a bad cough, the vet said he had kennel cough and upper respitory infection and sent me home with antibiotics, instructions to give him childrens robitussion, childrens pedialyte and kaopectate for his diarrhea. Faithfuly committed to helping my puppy I spent many nights waking up every two hours to push the fluids, give him his medicine, and even for a time had to heat up canned puppy food until it would smoothly shot through my cake frosting gun down his throat, but I did it and by the next week when I took Riley back to the vet he no longer had a fever, the discharge and coughing had stopped, and he was eating 2 cups of food on his own and had gained 2 1/2 lbs. Of course elated over such good news we left the vet telling me to keep up the good work.

The whole next couple of weeks have been great, Riley became playful like any puppy, he loved to be hugged, rubbed, and be close to me. But this afternoon something horrible started happening to him, when I touched him he would yep like I had hurt him, then he started having these convulsions and his head would twitch uncontrollably, so I rushed him to the vet and the news came back that his eyes were blood shot, his temp was sky high, and after a blood test it was confirmed that he had distemper that had made it to his brain and that was causing the convulsions and twitching, on the advice of my vet I conceded very reluctently to having to say good by to a little guy that brought a lot of fun with his playfulness, laughter with his funny personalty, and love.

I am so sad but at the same time I am thankful that even for a brief time, Riley had the chance to experience having a home, a soft comfortable bed, plenty of food to eat, and most all lots and lots of love. Even though our time together has been cut short, Riley you will always be a sweet sweet memory!!!