Heartbroken over X

It is ironic that I was recently talking about how beautiful our morning walks are. 

Yesterday, while we were still in the first half of the walk and as usual marvelling at the sun rise I spotted the cadaver of a young dog on the side of the road. Although it’s not exactly a very rare sight, it’s not a common one either as the street sweepers get rid of them quite quickly. As we walked past the dead body I noticed it was still breathing. The poor dog was in an awful state: it had only skin on bones and couldn’t move. It was dying. 

We decided to pick her up and bring her to hospital. To make our lives a little complicated it was just the day we didn’t have the car (it was in servicing) but the landlord very kindly offered we take his. 

We drove to the government vet hospital but there wasn't anyone there. We waited for an hour or so until a vet walked in. He gave one look at the dog and asked, in shock, what happened. We explained we had picked her up from the street. He gave her a few injections and told us to come back in 2 hours for some drips. I was half expecting him to say it would be better to put her down but since he didn’t bring it up I preferred not to mention it. 

We came back later in the morning for her drips. The hospital was busy: several dogs, a buffalo and her new born and a pigeon with a broken wing. The vet took a blood sample to make some tests and cleaned some of her wounds. We guessed she was a 5-6 months old female. She was starving to death. 

The drips helped. By the time we got home she could stand up for a few seconds before collapsing again. She did so several times with impressive resilience until she almost passed out with exhaustion. I tried to move her out of a dangerous spot she had gotten herself into and she bit me. 

We went to pick up the blood tests in the evening and showed them to the vet on duty. He hadn’t seen the dog but he couldn’t believe the results. We showed him a photo of how emaciated she was and he understood. He told us to bring her back the next morning for some more drips. 

When we got back the poor thing was in a bad state. She couldn’t move and was going through some sort of spasms. The vet in the morning had mentioned that would happen so we watched, helpless. By evening it was becoming quite clear she was not going to make it. Her breathing slowed and she died. 

We never named her. We thought it would bring bad luck. It’s very sad to think such a little thing had to suffer so much.