On the 17th of January 2011, I received a phone call from a friend and fellow animal lover about a 5 month old Great Dane puppy that had been rescued from a pet store. The poor baby was suffering from an advanced case of canine distemper, as well as pneumonia, and was merely skin and bones when she arrived at my house.
My fiancee Laura and I dedicated our lives to caring for her, giving her injections, IV solutions, and force feeding her regularly, as she was too weak to eat on her own. In the process of tending to her needs, we failed to realise how deeply in love with her we had fallen.
One day while we sat with her keeping her company, I decided to call her “Lulla”, and for the first time since we had gotten her she looked up at me with her beautiful brown eyes. It was settled, she was our “Lulla”. We spent countless hours sitting with her and cuddling with her; the bond between us grew.
Slowly but surely, “Lulla’s” condition started to improve as she fought the distemper, and she slowly started to become more active; a ray of hope. However, she had her good days and her bad.
This morning we decided she needed to go for a walk, to see the sun, and to feel the wind on her face. Surely this would give her the will to live; the will to fight. As we strolled through the gardens by my house, I saw what i could only describe as a smile on her beautiful white and grey face.
Later today, “Lulla’s” condition rapidly started to complicate, and the discharge and fluids in her chest made it almost impossible for her to breathe. She lay her head on Laura’s shoulders, almost as if asking for help. I got the car ready to take her to the vet, and rushed out of the house with her in my arms. We weren’t fast enough. As we made our way to the car, she took in a deep breath, sighed, and became lifeless in my arms.
Our baby “Lulla” had lost the will to live, but I was not ready to stop fighting for her. I lay her down on the stairs of my house, and started to perform CPR. After 2 or 3 minutes of fighting for her, she surprised me and came back to life. She took a deep breath and looked at me with the beautiful brown eyes we had fallen so deeply in love with.
We got in the car and raced towards the closest vet, who was making her way back to the clinic especially for us. We arrived, abandoned the car in the middle of the road, and raced up the building towards the clinic. Having arrived a few minutes before the vet, we waited impatiently, praying that “Lulla” would hold on; every minute felt like a century.
Once again it was too late. With another deep breath and a sigh, she closed her eyes and went limp in my arms. She lost the power to fight for any longer. I attempted CPR one more time, hoping to see her looking up at me once again, but it was done; it was her time to go.
I lay on the floor next to her with my head between my knees as Laura broke into tears of disbelief. Our baby, our “Lulla”, she was gone….
Today a part of us died…
“Lulla” is just one in thousands of poor, neglected, and mistreated animals in pet stores in Egypt, and all over the world.
Together we can put an end to this cruelty…
Say no to pet stores…
Say no to breeders…
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