FUCK YEAH! Pit Bull Terriers

I wanted to start by saying thank you to everyone who reblogged and donated to Hintza’s care. I can’t tell you how much it means to me and to her adopters. Unfortunately, Hintza didn’t make it through Sunday. I’ve been dealing with the next steps, as well as a huge pet expo I was an exhibitor at all weekend, and haven’t had time to update. Her body just couldn’t take the strain anymore. She started to go at home, and her family saw it best to take her in to be euthanised so she wouldn’t have to suffer any longer. She went with love from her mom and brother. She couldn’t have had it any better. This family dedicated so much of their lives to our little girl. I mean really, who do you know that would spend $20 a day just on dog food for one dog alone to keep their dog going? As much as I would love to be able to do that, I financially could not have given her the care they dedicated the last 9 months to giving her. Hintza’s best friend was a 15 year old boy named Colton who loved her with all of his heart. Their mom is a wonderful woman named Christina who put her needs behind Hintza’s. Due to whatever Hintza’s disease was, she didn’t sleep much. She would wake up sporadically and pace and whimper and cry. She needed to be let out to go to the bathroom every hour or so, even though she was a year old. Christina deprived herself of sleep to give Hintza what she needed. She did this without so much as a bat of they eye or a second thought. Hintza was loved beyond belief. She still is. I know without a doubt her family will never replace her in their hearts or forget about her. 

Myself and the rest of the staff with my rescue are heartbroken. We feel like we’ve let Hintza and her family down. When I rescue a dog, I do it for life. I saved her from the hell hole she was living in with the intent of giving her a long fulfilled loving life. I let her down. She was only a year old and had been through so much. I keep trying to remind myself she received more love and care than so many other dogs do. 4 million or so dogs die in shelters each year. Without love. Without a family. Without warm hands comforting them as they go. Hintza didn’t have much time, but she did have all of that. I hate that we didn’t have the money to just hand over to the vet to treat her and take care of everything right away. The vet still says she probably wouldn’t have made it, but I would’ve liked to try anyway. My rescue animals are family. Their adopters are family. You don’t give up on family. The fact that $5000 is what stopped us from being able to try harder, breaks my fucking heart. The fact that we couldn’t find a single emergency vet that would proceed with care if we set  up a payment plan is disgusting. 

This experience has made me want two things. The first is to participate more in A Loving Goodbye (https://www.facebook.com/alovinggoodbye?fref=ts). A Loving Goodbye is a movement founded by David Hendrickson of Hendrick Boards (a wonderful apparel company that features gorgeous rescue related super comfy clothes AND gives back to rescues) that gives shelter animals one final loving goodbye before they’re euthanised. This project is one of the most important new things I can think of in rescue right now. The second thing I would like to do is start a fund to have backup funds ready for our dogs that have already been adopted, but may have an emergency come up. I want to be able to help our ICARE dogs that are in permanent homes as much as we help them before they get adopted. In the coming weeks I will be working on this. If you’d like to donate now, send me a note, and I’ll get you the info on where and how you can donate. I’ll be setting up a separate paypal from the current rescue one to keep these funds separate. I just need to find a way to keep them connected so it can still be tax deductible. I guess technically there’s a third thing. I want to start a collective list of vets and clinics that will actually assist in emergencies like this. Places that will care for your animal no matter what, and will work with you to pay for it after the fact. As I do more research I’ll be posting about that. 

Again thank you all so much for your help. It really means the world to me. Even if all we were able to do was buy Hintza enough time to spend one more day with her family, she had a chance to go home and say goodbye to her doggy brother and spend some quality time out of a hospital with her human family. \

tl;dr Hintza didn’t make it. Vets blow. Not having money blows, but you guys are awesome.