R.I.P. Miss Quinn

Today was my day off. Dave and I had planned to spend the night in a comp room at a casino and a lovely dinner and comedy show. Dave is Mon-Fri 9-5 and I'm nights and weekends, so I'd planned to take the kids to Malibu beach. Its the Dog beach in EHT and Miss Quinn loved to run free up and down the beach in the surf.

The parking lot is under construction so we had to park at the fishing beach across the street and walk across a relatively busy highway. There was some confusing directional signage that caused us to have to walk back onto the shoulder and Miss Quinn slipped out of her collar.

I felt slack on the leash and looked back. She was smiling back at me in defiance and freedom as I watched her run under the back tire of a massive pickup with a lift and three foot high tires. I screamed a scream that was animal and stood there shrieking for what seemed like hours but was less than a minute.When I ran over she was howling and I was shaking, gripping tightly to the leash still attached to Axle Rose. It seemed like thirty people appeared out of nowhere and three men scooped her up as I frantically and rudely screamed "help me," "pick her up," "your not moving fast enough."

I drove her to the nearest animal hospital and no doctor was on duty. I was directed to Linwood, NJ to RBVH (i only know the V is for veterinary and H is for Hospital).

On the drive she was responsive and stubborn as usual and I thought maybe it was a broken leg or two. We got there and two vet techs got her onto the stretcher and took her in for x-rays.

I was promted with the question "How aggressive do you want to be with treatment?" This was followed up with the explanation that she had a broken back and diaphragm. After two very short years I was required to make the decision to save her life with thousands in medical bills and be immobile from the waist down.

She was an athletic muscular dog with little need little other than your heart, dog food and cold filtered water. She was a spoiled girl. Waiting in a treatment room even Axl wouldn't drink the tap water, but I do. My kids drink filtered water, I drink tap.
She hadn't been at the Beach in a while because Axl was a recent ly adopted stray and needed to learn his name. She had been so excited in the car she was running in circles in my little two door coupe.

I was so distraught that I was not of the mind to make a decent decision. I knew what I needed to do, but I called Dave for support in the right decision. Today I had to give up my best friend in a selfless decision that prevented her from suffering.

We bought a house with a big fenced in yard for her. She loved to frolick without restraint and we got her little big brother, Axl Rose, to keep her company.She lived the best two years with us a dog could have. Save a life, give them the best you have. Save a life, rescue a best friend from a shelter.