The Story of “Miracle” Dog Tessa
It had been five years since I had to put to sleep my last dog and was finally ready to adopt a new dog. My search 1 ½ years ago led me to a Siberian husky rescue organization. There I found a beautiful, loving sweet 1 ½ year old named Tessa who had been pulled from the Riverside City animal shelter where she was about to be put to sleep.
Ever since I rescued her (or maybe the other way around), she has been my Velcro dog who just follows me around wherever I go and is always up for a good hike, loves car rides and camping. So about two weeks ago we decided to go for a hike up on the Pacific Coast Trail up in the Garner Valley area. It was a moderately warm day of about 80 degrees. We hiked at a fast pace and went about three miles in when I noticed that Tessa was really having a hard time, very overheated, panting and very uncomfortable. We rested for a while in the shade and I thought she was better. So, we decided to hike back out. I noticed she was having a hard time keeping up with is not like her and finally she just laid down in the trail. By now I was really getting worried as she could not catch her breath, was slobbering, her tongue and gums were turning a purple color etc.
I didn’t know it at the time but she was showing the classic signs of heat stroke which can be deadly to dogs and people. This was about 1:30 in the pm. I tried to get her to drink water but she was not interested and going downhill fast. I stayed with her until 5 pm and had run out of water. I knew I couldn’t save her from death if I didn’t change the equation so decided to hike out and drive back to my house in La Quinta where I loaded up with water, towels and overnight gear and drove and hiked as fast as I could back to find her, worried to death that the coyotes or mountain lions that frequent the area would get her or she would have died from the heatstroke before I got back. She was still there and so I drenched towels in water and wrapped them around her and tried to get her to drink water but she was in really, really rough shape, couldn’t get up or move.
The next morning, (a Friday) I decided I was going to go down to the ranches in Garner Valley to see if I could find someone to let me borrow a wheelbarrow to take in to bring her out. Keep in mind that she weighs 80 pounds so carrying her was out of the question. So now that you know what happened to her, here is where she earns the title of miracle dog as I do believe all the miracles that had to happen to save her continue to astound me. Just prior to me leaving around 9 am, a woman came running by me on the trail heading further in and then about 10 minutes later she came by on her way back to the trailhead which was about 2.3 miles away. I explained my dilemma and it turns out she and her husband live in Garner Valley and have horses and dog. Keep in mind this was a Friday and she only runs that trail on Friday each week. She also goes 2 ½ miles in and then 2 ½ back to the car. We were 2.3 miles in. She happened to know there was a cell phone signal at that location and was able to reach her husband who was at the ranch and they happened to have a two wheeled cart/wheelbarrow which he offered to push up the trail to where we were. When he arrived, we were able to get Tessa loaded into the cart and we pushed and pulled it all the way back to the trailhead and my car. I am so grateful to such wonderful people that I can never repay.
It was now about 2 pm on Friday and I drove like a bat out of hell for an hour to reach Village Park Animal Hospital where the amazing caring staff led by Dr. Bradshaw were handed my dog that was on her last legs. Her kidneys and liver had shut down and she was super dehydrated so they put gave her IV’s for fluid. It was now about 5 pm but she was still having a really hard time breathing so they did an x-ray and found that she virtually all of her internal organs were inside her chest cavity completely collapsing one lung and pushing on the other. This was a dire life or death emergency so the team at VPAH went to work and arranged for surgery the next morning. We were concerned though as she was not stable and there were real concerns about doing the surgery.
Tessa survived the surgery but was in such bad shape that I had to transfer her to the VCA emergency hospital in Indio. She was not doing well and by Sunday night was almost a goner. The only thing left was to give her a blood transfusion and another miracle is that they only had one unit left and gave it to Tessa. Due to the high costs I could no longer leave her there and brought her home on a Tuesday morning to care for her at home thinking it was likely to just keep her comfortable until I had to put her to sleep. But Tessa is a fighter and she ever so slowly began to incrementally improve. The team at VPAH all came to know Tessa from her almost daily visits, many phone calls etc. And have really cheered for her recovery knowing her story.
So, in summary there were so many dominos that had to fall into place to save my beautiful sweet goofy dog. There were so many things that all had to align for this story to have a happy ending. She is now eating like herself, does her typical husky howling or “talking” to me when she wants to be fed or go for a walk and is getting stronger every day. I am so grateful to Dr. Bradshaw and Dr. Wallace, the entire team at both Village Park Animal Hospital and the VCA emergency hospital and for a wonderful person who has helped me with some of the bills. The irony is that only a week before the hike I had looked at getting pet insurance but hadn’t settled on which company. Lesson learned the hard way! But she is worth every penny I paid and you can be sure I will be taking lots of water and shade breaks on our hikes in the future. I am glad my not paying closer attention to her during our hike didn’t cost her life and know we will have many years of adventures thanks to so many caring committed people. From both Tessa and I from the bottom of our heart, thank you, thank you, thank you!
