Lady (Mei Mei)

A group of workers had recently noticed this dog lying motionless on the pavement for a few days, panting. As each day passed, they grew increasingly worried. Her condition didn't seem to have improved at all, and it seemed she was dying. They determined that she needed help, and got in touch with us.

Arriving at the vet with an extremely bloated stomach

Lady is actually skin and bones. The fluids make her look overweight 

When we got there, we saw a tick-infested dog with a huge and swollen belly. Our first thought was that she must be heavily pregnant, but we were wrong. What looked like a pregnancy at first turned out to be an extremely bloated stomach, full of fluids. She was so bloated that she must have had several kilograms of fluids in there.

Waiting to be warded

We could clearly feel all her ribs, and the muscles in her back legs have shrunk and wasted away, which means that Lady hasn't walked for some months. Could she have been sick for a long time? And in all this time, no one saw or noticed her?

                                                              
                                     Lady at the vet, her breathing extremely laboured.

We put her in a carrier and brought her to the vet. When we arrived, she was panting so heavily that she didn't even have the energy to stand, let alone walk. We couldn't carry her either, for fear of pressing against her distended stomach. So we gingerly pushed her into the consult room. She bared her teeth at us once but made no attempt to bite. It was purely in self defense, not knowing what was happening to her and being in a strange surrounding. We named the girl Lady.

Finally, some rest and comfort at the vet 

The vet ran the standard suite of blood tests, and we were shattered to find out that Lady had a condition known as Ascites, which means she is suffering from right heart failure due to a severe case of heartworm. The symptoms of left heart failure are coughing and labored breathing, while right heart failure causes a bloated stomach and water in the lungs. The condition is irreversible and terminal. No surgeon is willing to operate on Lady.

Feeling truly sorry for herself

Finally, a loving touch

Her case is a complicated one as she has heartworm and the adult worms have entered her heart vessels. According to the vet in consult, there is no vet in Singapore who can do this surgery to remove the heartworms from her heart so it is a matter of time before she passes on from heart failure. The vet mentioned that she is only 4 years old and may have been suffering for a few weeks to a few months. 

The vet reckons she may have just a few more days. Her breathing is terribly labored and today, she didn't even eat. All we can do now is to give her medication to make her last days comfortable.

Imagine her terror and confusion with the water gradually filling up her lungs, not being able to breathe and feeling like she's slowly drowning. How helpless she must have felt when she got too weak to even stand and walk.

When we visit her at the vet, she just lies on her side, staring into nothing, gasping for air, and you can see the years of hardship and suffering in her eyes. She looks empty, pained, and resigned. There is a lot of fear in her eyes as well, not knowing what is happening to her. The life of a stray is so heartbreakingly lonely. Nobody would have known or cared if she lived or died.

Now that we've found her, would someone be willing to foster her and make her comfortable in her last few days? We know that it is a lot to ask, to take a dog into your life that will leave it in just a few short days / weeks. But this would be the only chance for Lady to know what it's like to have a home. If no one steps forward, she will stay at the vet and die there, never having experienced the love and care of a family. She would waste away in her small cage, and there will be nothing to relieve her pain and loneliness but death.

Waiting for death to overcome her.

Please give Lady a chance at love in her final days.

To foster or help with Lady's vet bills, please email hopedogrescue@singnet.com.sg