My husband and I foster for a local animal rescue, Ozzie and Friends Rescue. Our fourth round of foster babies have been through so much and their fight just keeps going.

They were rescued from a home that were mistreating 2 pregnant mommas with 2 different litters. Oreo (previously Angel) is the only one from his litter who survived Parvo. Alex and his siblings were a little luckier, with most of them surviving Parvo, and his mom was able to be rescued along with her pups. Oreo’s mom sadly is still with the original owner.

A week after we got Oreo (we renamed him after foster failing) and Alex, Oreo started coughing really bad and Alex stopped eating and became more lethargic. Over that weekend, Oreo’s cough became so much worse and Alex began throwing up and having bloody diarrhea. They both were already having diarrhea when we got them, but I thought that was just from stress of a new environment. They were put on Flagisyn to help treat the diarrhea after it persisted past their first 3 days with us.

I took off work and took them to the vet since their conditions kept getting by worse. Redid a Parvo test just in case, but luckily it was negative. The regular Vet highly suggested I take them to an emergency vet for hospitalization for possible kennel cough, the lethargy, and hopefully it wasn’t distemper…

Alex ended up being hospitalized for 24 hours that night, while I was able to take Oreo home with a lot of medication (on suspicion of kennel cough). They took blood and fecal samples from both dogs to make sure it wasn’t anything more serious.

Alex got a lot better after hospitalization, and started eating and drinking water again, so I was able to take him back home after the 24hrs. I kept them separate from each other, as well as from our dog Mochi, to prevent spreading illness amongst them.

Even so, the next day Alex started coughing as well, so we had to assume he also had kennel cough, since he and Oreo were together before we realized Oreo was sick. So we kept them isolated in our kitchen, and I gave them each 4 different types of medicine every 12 hours.

For a while, they were eating and drinking pretty well, but after a few days, the lethargy and vomiting came back. And then I finally got the result call while I was at work that Oreo is positive for Distemper…. After fighting so hard to survive Parvo when none of his siblings were able to…

So now both Oreo and Alex are in Mexico in a distemper house, receiving round the clock treatment and monitoring of the rescue and their vet.

I paid for their initially vet visit, emergency visit, initial hospitalization, and their medications. I couldn’t wait to transport them to the rescue’s vet because of their deteriorating conditions. Even now, they continue to accumulate medical bills as they receive distemper treatment.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I just really wanted to highlight how strong these babies are and how much they’ve been through, even though they were only born on June 12, 2025. I’m raising this money to recuperate the $3.6k I spent out of pocket on their emergency bills, and anything beyond that will go to the rescue to help with their increasing bills.

Please note the rescue is a 503(c) org and that all donations qualify for tax deductions. Please reach out to me after donating and I can provide you with the rescue’s EIN for your tax documents. Every amount helps. We really just want these babies to survive, help Alex find his furever home, and to bring Oreo back home with us so we can officially adopt him…