Polly Vance (@Aunt_Polly)

We had a very traumatic event happen today. That's on top of all the other stuff that is going on in my life. A neighbor knocked on the door and said, "is this your dog out here" I said "where?" And he pointed to a dog collapsed on the driveway in the stages of death from the heat. The dog was breathing so fast and didn't want water because he was just trying to breathe. I knew that we would be witnessing a death and that it would take only so long as the strength of the dogs heart. The heat index was in between 107 and 115. People leave their dogs in their back yards all the time here and they die here. This dog was in the death throws. Hubs immediately got a water hose and put it on the dog. We stayed there with very little improvement for 2.5 hours just bathing her in water. After about the 1.5 mark she finally took some water. She was unable to lift her head much or walk. It was a good size blonde lab. We tried to reassure her and let her know that we were not going to leave her. I had envisioned us being up with her most of the night because I though she was a young dog. Her teeth looked good. I was pretty sure after about an hour and a half of no improvement, the heaving and trying to get good air flow in her lungs the rapid breathing the grunting...it was awful. I don't think that she would have survived a car trip. We kept her in the shade and continued to pour water on her and let her lay in a continuous pool of water sprayed from the hose under her body. I turned her a couple of times from side to side. After about 2.5 hours hubs saw that she took 2 normal breaths and even got up to go potty. Shortly after that the owners of the dog had been looking for her and saw us outside came and said that she had gotten out the front door as it was left open and that they only lived on the next block down from us. She said that she was named "Honey" and that they had had her for 13 years. She was too weak to stand so the owner picked her large heavy body up and took her to the vet. We asked her to let us know how she was doing. She came back by the house and said that we had saved her life. She had not had a heat stroke and that they were giving her fluids and had her under observation. I am so glad for the dog, but I really never want to see anything like that again. The dog looked to me like it had been an outside dog because it had flea droppings all through the hair. So sadly, I think that the lady was lying about how the dog got out. Just a few years back, our neighbor left their long haired chihuahua outside and it died of heat exhaustion. That dog escaped 3 times from that yard. Sadly, I wasn't able to pick up on the cues that it was in trouble and needed a better home. God uses us. There is no doubt about it. Please be that person that saves a dog. This is the rescue for people that is really great to give money to. It is housed in Houston, but works to rehome dogs all across the U.S. One thing that they will say about Texas is that they will not adopt from within because Texas has such a bad reputation about taking care of animals. freedomstreetrescue.org I am very sad tonight despite the good news about "Honey." I will never understand how people can be so calloused with their wonderful animals. I will tell you that "honey" was able to wag her tail in very short wags and she knew that we had done the very best and was glad to see her momma. I really think that we witnessed another miracle today.