In Memory of Rico

This is the story of a stray picked up by a good Samaritan, and given to a friend who couldn't keep him. FBRN got a call, and one of our volunteers rushed to pick him up.

When she arrived, she found a dog who was an absolute mess. Swollen belly, skinny, tick-ridden, home-docked tail, and a botched ear crop on one side. Scrapes, bruises and lots of and bumps and lumps. He was a sad fellow, but very, very sweet and gentle. A badly bred frenchie or a badly bred boston or both. She soothed him, put him in her car and sped to her vet where they did a heartworm test, fecal, skin scrape and x-rays. They could detect almost no lung sounds at all. The sad truth quickly emerged.

He was at least 9 yrs old, and maybe a lot older. He had foggy eyes, terrible arthritis in his back and hips, heavy tartar on his worn down teeth, and a heart murmur. The worst news was that his heart was enlarged.

Gigantically, horribly, impossibly enlarged so that he had to breathe from way down at the bottom of his belly. His heart pressed upon his lungs to a degree that they could no longer inflate. He had Ehrlichia, a tick borne disease and he had been on the run for a long, long time.

There was no "best case scenario" this time. What could be done for him would never make him whole; it would only prolong his suffering. This emaciated old dog had endured far too much already. After a tearful discussion about possibilities and probable outcomes, our volunteer and her veterinarian agreed that the kindest thing to do was to release him from the prison that was his battled, world worn body. Our volunteer held him as the vet administered the injection and lovingly whispered to him as he quietly slipped away.

She called him Rico.

Rico was buried in the backyard of her home next to the graves of her beloved pets who passed before him. She didn't have long to love him. But she loved him.