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Allie's Tale Allie was roughly 7 or 8 years old.  A black & tan female that came in as a Polk County stray during Hurricane Frances. Blessed with the greatest temperament & personality, Allie captured our hearts immediately.  She'd obviously been heavily over-used as a breeding bitch as her teats were extremely low and large.  She was a bit stiff in the joints, needed her teeth cleaned and needed to be spayed. 

Of course none of this is unusual with older rescues.  On top of that though, Allie also had severe mastitis in several teats. She was high positive for Heartworm, which means she'd not been receiving the necessary preventative. 

We would happily have treated the heartworm as we do with many rescues, but when we preped her for surgery, to spay and remove her 6 breast tumors, we could not get her legs out straight; upon an x-ray her hips were moderately dysplasitic with severe arthritis.  As sweet as she was, Allie should never have been bred once!  And had she been spayed early, she would not have developed breast cancer.

I had a very hard decision to make; treat the heartworm, put her on meds for the arthritis and put her though very painful surgery to remove her tumors - or end her pain. This is the worst part of rescue - when you have to make these choices.

"Allie, I have sent you on a journey to a land free from pain, not because I did not love you, but because I loved you too much to force you to stay."  -Diane Roberts