Charlie Girl was our 4th foster(and our last) who came to NJBR in November 2004 at the age of 8. She was actually removed from her home by the SPCA, from a very affluent neighborhood, where her and her mate were being kept outside to fend for themselves since she was too old to breed anymore.  If it were not for NJBR she would have never been taken from that shelter because no one would have adopted a dog that looked like that.

When we first saw her we thought she was not going to be with us very long at all.  She weighed 28 pounds, limped on three legs, had several broken teeth, awful breath, several large tumors on her skin and nipples, and didn't respond much to any playing by us or our dog.  The shelter that took her in from the SPCA treated her for earmites, worms,  and gave her vaccinations before she came to NJBR, so we are unsure of that cost.  Our rescue vet would not even spay her and biopsy her tumors until she put on more weight because they were afraid she would not make it through the surgery. 

Once she put on some weight the rescue paid $1200.00 to have her spayed, have 8 tumors removed and biopsied, and do some x-rays to find out why she was limping.  Turned out she had Lyme's Disease, which was part of the cause of the limping, and arthritis, which didn't help much either.  Her tail bone had also fused with the other bones most likely due to being kicked or hit with an object so she could never wag her little nub. 

Needless to say, once we found out the tumors were mast cell, the rescue did not get much interest in a senior dog with arthritis, lyme's, and cancer history.  Which was just fine with us because everyone who met her loved her, even our friends and relatives who are not dog people commented that if they had a dog they'd want one just like her.  Very well behaved, well mannered, and content to just be in the room with you.  You would have never known she was an abused and neglected dog by her behavior.  Someone finally emailed us about meeting her and I cried, I knew I couldn't give her up.  Once we had been through so much with this sweet little girl we decided we were not going to adopt her out, but keep her with us.

After a while we knew her medical problems were not over, she began to get more tumors and needed another surgery, she also needed excess gum tissue removed so she could eat better.  The vet wanted to do an X Ray and ultrasound to see if the tumors spread to any of her organs.  This surgery cost about $1360.00.   And so the vet bills continued to pile up...she was becoming incontinent and had a full senior blood work run up to make sure there were not other issues, that cost $172.00.  This medicine, along with her arthritis medicine, was now costing $77.00 a month.  In addition she had to have blood work done every 6 months to make sure she could continue on the meds and they were not interfering with her liver functions, that cost $55.00 every time. 

Since Charlie was used to scrounging up her own food she would dig a lot in the yard, apparently she ingested a flea or flea egg and developed tapeworms, a $95.00 ordeal.  She also managed to scratch her cornea and ended up having to see a specialist at the University of Penn Vet, that cost about $1800.00 (13 straight weeks of visits to the vet).  All the while she was still the happy go lucky little girl that everyone loved.  She would sit perfectly still while the opthomologist scraped her eye with a needle to debride it every week.  No one could believe how much pain she could endure.

Even on the day she finally passed she walked calmly into the vet's office and just waited for them to do what they could, as they always did for her.  We thought she was having allergic reaction to something, she started turning red and couldn't breathe.  But she was actually suffering from bloat, and once the vet saw her x-rays he thought she may have had another tumor developing in her abdomen that caused such a bad reaction quickly.  He explained that her chances of pulling through a surgery for this were less than 40% and it would cost about $2500.00, but that is not what mattered to us the most.  He said if she did pull through, she would not be herself, she would have digestive problems and most likely remain in pain.  She ended up passing without us having to make a decision...with me there and holding her hand like always, just content to be near me. 

She was so special that her vet was not actually in the office when I rushed her in, he happened to stop by to pick up a file and when he heard she was there he went right to her, then came to me and stayed with us both until she passed.  Everyone in the office was crying (she visited so much they all knew her!) 

So by the time you add up all of this and her last vet visit that is about $6800.00.  That doesn't even count her routine yearly visits, vaccinations, flea and heartworm preventative.  And she was worth every penny!  We would have done anything to have been able to give her more time IF it meant she would have been happy.  The most important part to us was that she had a wonderful 21 months at the end of her life, and she absolutely deserved it.  And this is what rescue makes possible.