It was so hard because she was so close to making it to the other side. We didn’t have any walls up emotionally – we knew she had a very small chance of surviving, but we poured all of our love into her, just hoping she could make it.
The initial call came in that there was a dog who desperately needed help. When we arrived, we found a skeleton of a dog laying in water and trash near a dumpster. We guess that she was hit by a car and left paralyzed. She dragged herself out of the street and was laying all alone, starving to death.
She reminded us so much of Harris when we first laid eyes on her. We named her Halia, which means remembrance of a loved one. She did good the first two days. She had enough adrenaline to sit up sternally and eat after her rescue.
We had to feed her very small amounts of food to avoid refeeding syndrome. But on the third day, she crashed. She couldn’t hold her head up, her gums were near-white, and food fell out of her mouth.
We couldn’t bare to put her though anymore and cherished the happy moments we were able to give her. We know she felt love. The last words she heard on this Earth was, “We are so sorry. You are so beautiful.