Lily the Chi

Lily is a senior chi/pom mix, she’s soft and tiny and just adorable. Lily was abandoned by her family when they moved away, she was just forgotten like an unwanted piece of furniture. Kind neighbors were feeding her, but she was leading a lonely existence. And she is sick.

When Lily came to us as part of our spay and neuter events dedicated to strays, abandoned animals and rescues, she had mammary tumors that were removed and stayed with us until she recovered. That’s when we realized she had a nasty cough. Very nasty. And this wasn’t a virus or like the flu, this was the kind of cough that leads you stright to a cardiologist.

Liy is negative for heartworm, which while it’s good, means there is something else going on, as HW is normally one reason for the cough. So we started digging. We did an x-ray where we can clearly see her lungs are super congested, but here wasn’t a clear indication of metastasis in the lungs, which was a concern. Then we went to the cardiologist, and while she does have a preclinical degree of heart issue, it is not the cause of her pulmonary issues, in a sense it’s good news. We will maybe never know what caused her lungs to be so damaged, but we need to figure out how to help her and offer her a comfortable life. And see if we can indeed find a family willing to put up with all her complexities (she’s so adorable that at least that makes it easier!).

Lily is most definitely one of those cases that have pushed up to start our Healing Paws Program. She needs long-term care, expensive tests and diagnostics, and an array of medicines. Plus, she may not be a good candidate to be adopted, so she’s the ideal doggie for our initiative.