Emergency Vet Bills for Caribou

On Tuesday, June 23rd, we picked up Caribou. She’s an 8 week old golden retriever puppy from Emerson and Co Dogs out of North Carolina. The night we picked her (and Sarah) up from the airport, she was bouncy, energetic, hungry, happy, and overall was healthy! She played and ate and drank when we got home. No one wanted to sleep despite it being almost 2am.

On Wednesday, June 24th, our sweet girl took a turn for the worst. She started acting super tired and was experiencing diarrhea. We thought “Ok she’s had an eventful few days, it’s just stress, it’ll be ok, this is expected”. Throughout the day she seemed to just start acting straight up lethargic but we were convinced she was just sleepy. Then she started refusing food. Once again we were convinced that it was due to the stress of traveling.

Thursday, June 25th, came and she had stopped drinking water and refused food completely all while still experiencing diarrhea at least 2-3 times a day. We started to think maybe it wasn’t just travel stress. We were desperate for her to eat so we fed her some wet food and she loved it. We were so relieved that she was finally eating, then about 2 hours later, she vomited it up. All of it.

Friday, June 26th, we decided we had waited long enough to call the vet and so we did. When we brought her in, she was still lethargic as all might. Not walking, no desire to stand, no reaction to handling. The vet was even extremely concerned at her position. She was tested for parvo just in case (she is vaccinated for it) and it was negative. Her glucose (basically blood sugar) was in the toilet. The vet had taken her to do blood work, tests, and to get an IV for fluids started. She tested positive for coccidia and they proceeded to treat for that. The vet recommended an all day stay, so that’s what we did in hopes that it’ll get her to perk up. Throughout the day, she still refused to eat and was put on anti nausea to help keep food down. The vet had force fed her a few bites of wet food in hopes that her energy would return. Since the vet was closing, we took Caribou home to watch on our own. That night she still refused to eat or drink anything and have still continued to experience diarrhea. We were letting her rest and we had walked over to check on her and she was covered in pee and completely unresponsive to touch, picking up, trying to look at eyes, and when we tried to open her mouth she woke up and briefly started moving. We thought she died.. but thankfully she was “ok”. I had tried to get her some water, food, and the syrup to keep her blood sugar level up. Still no desire to eat, but while I rinsed the pee off of her she seemed interested in the water and she was able to get a fewsips. I put wipes some food in her mouth and followed it with some syrup and she promptly went back to sleep where I laid next to her andwatched her breathe for over an hour until I eventually was falling asleep so I put her in her crate. Throughout the night, she would cry to be let out. When I would, she’d only want to gooutside to lay in the grass which kind of baffled us as to why she wanted that so bad.

Saturday morning, June 27th, we had planned on taking Caribou back to the vet for more fluids and monitoring. Brady had taken her out to go pee and she had vomited more bile and foam. We promptly took her to the vet and back she went. When I called for updates our vet said that Caribou had an even lower glucose level than yesterday before the sugar, fluids, and small bits of food. They put her on a sugar IV basically, to get her blood sugar back up and they continued the fluids and medication for her treatment. They also informed me that was was having straight up blood diarrhea that morning. We obviously are a wreck at this point because holy cow like what’s gonna happen to her? So we had to go pick her up because the vet was closing. Then we took her to the 24 hour emergency vet hospital where she was taken in and assessed there. The vet recommended a 3-5 day stay with aggressive antibiotics, vigorous tests, and lots of fluids to keep her hydrated. With the blood tests ran her potassium was low, her red blood cell count was slightly low, her white blood cells are doubled from what they normally would be, and her proteins were significantly lowerthan they should be. Everything else looks good as far as her organ function though. So that was good to hear. We decided to let them keep her for 48 hours and we decided to try a blood transfusion as well to see if that helps. Withall of that, because we still don’t know what it is that’s causing her to be as sick as she is, we were given a 50/50 chance of her survival. As of right now we have a $2,500 deposit down on her stay but could be as high as $2,800 by Monday morning. At that point is when we decide if we wanted to do additional days of intensive care as she is in critical condition at the moment.

The other puppies in the litter are fine. One of them that we know of also tested positive for coccidia, but was asymptotic. Anything congenital has also been ruled out. Sarah, our breeder for Caribou has been so sweet and by our side this entire time and trying to offer advice and help where she can.

Anything helps, even a dollar. Thank you for your time and hopefully we can get our baby girl back her strength to conquer the world! She’s fought for her life since the day she was born. She’s spunky and lively and strong willed, we want our baby girl back. Even if you can’t donate, a share or a prayer would work just as good as she has so much life left to live. Thank you again.