This little boy, Charlie, was featured as our pet of the week in the Register & Bee, as well as being the pet spotlight in the URW. After his picture was taken, he exhibited signs of parvo. We took him to a veterinary clinic and treatment immediately began. For a few days, he seemed to be doing better.

Yesterday, a veterinarian told us that it appeared the vomiting had caused his intestines to “accordion.” There were some treatments that could be tried, but she said he was suffering.

After Charlie and his veterinary team tried valiantly to save him, he was euthanized. Why are we telling you?

On our 2024 annual report, Charlie will be counted in the “euthanized” column. If we had allowed him to linger until he died on his own, he would be included in the “died in facility” column. That number would have been overlooked by the “no-kill” calculations and would not have adversely affected our numbers.

But, Charlie would have suffered. And that is unacceptable to us.