RUFUS
I wanted to give you an update on Charlie (formerly Rufus). We adopted him from your rescue on December 12th, 2021. I want to thank you for entrusting us with him all those years ago. Today we made the extremely difficult decision to euthanize Charlie. He was 9y/o. He has had issues with his hips for the past couple years and over the past couple months his arthritis had gotten much worse. He would isolate himself in the basement because climbing the stairs became painful. We tried Libra and gabapentin. The gabapentin just made him sleep all day, and the librela worked for the first week but quickly wore off. He started having lots of accidents in the house (which was very out of character) as he struggled to go up and down the patio stairs to the grass. We went to the vets and had bloodwork, urinalysis, and x-rays completed. It was determined his gallbladder and kidneys were no longer functioning properly and he had large amount of crystals in his urine. His bilirubin numbers were off. We switched him to urinary food and increased his water intake. The past couple days his urine turned brown. His kidneys and liver were failing quickly. We spent the day snuggling and made a stop at his all time favourite place. Tim Hortons. For the first time he got to try chocolate glazed instead of his usual plain timbit, because no one should pass without knowing joy of chocolate. We were so blessed to have him in our lives and we will miss him for a lifetime. Charlie watched us go from boyfriend/girlfriend, to a married couple with two children. I have no words to describe how thankful we are of the rescue for our boy. He was my best friend and my favourite shoulder to cry on. I work at a veterinary office and when people are looking to adopt I always make sure to mention Animals First. We had a great experience adopting through your rescue and when we are ready to open our hearts again, we hope to adopt through Animals First again.
RUFUS
I wanted to give you an update on Charlie (formerly Rufus). We adopted him from your rescue on December 12th, 2021. I want to thank you for entrusting us with him all those years ago. Today we made the extremely difficult decision to euthanize Charlie. He was 9y/o. He has had issues with his hips for the past couple years and over the past couple months his arthritis had gotten much worse. He would isolate himself in the basement because climbing the stairs became painful. We tried Libra and gabapentin. The gabapentin just made him sleep all day, and the librela worked for the first week but quickly wore off. He started having lots of accidents in the house (which was very out of character) as he struggled to go up and down the patio stairs to the grass. We went to the vets and had bloodwork, urinalysis, and x-rays completed. It was determined his gallbladder and kidneys were no longer functioning properly and he had large amount of crystals in his urine. His bilirubin numbers were off. We switched him to urinary food and increased his water intake. The past couple days his urine turned brown. His kidneys and liver were failing quickly. We spent the day snuggling and made a stop at his all time favourite place. Tim Hortons. For the first time he got to try chocolate glazed instead of his usual plain timbit, because no one should pass without knowing joy of chocolate. We were so blessed to have him in our lives and we will miss him for a lifetime. Charlie watched us go from boyfriend/girlfriend, to a married couple with two children. I have no words to describe how thankful we are of the rescue for our boy. He was my best friend and my favourite shoulder to cry on. I work at a veterinary office and when people are looking to adopt I always make sure to mention Animals First. We had a great experience adopting through your rescue and when we are ready to open our hearts again, we hope to adopt through Animals First again.