Tale of two parvo puppies

This beautiful 3 month old lab pup, RIVER, is going to survive parvo virus - unlike, INCITE, the sweet pitbull mix we had to euthanise last Friday who lived on the streets of Berkeley with his young homeless owner. The difference between the two same age pups? One was given urgent and intensive care early in the stages of the disease, and one - putting it bluntly - lived and died according to the financial restraints of the owner and dare I say it a lack of care - not that the owner did not care, but he was not equipped emotionally to deal with the collapse of his dog, and the vet who first diagnosed the parvo virus cared also, but in the absence of any money from the owner or a 'pet wellness safety net', there just weren't the resources for the hospitalisation this pup desperately needed.

And at the core of this problem is that in the East Bay, we are ten years behind the system of care that the amazing VetSOS has put in place in San Francisco, where a pup like INCITE would have been admitted to the SF SPCA and given the care he needed, and then his owners would have been required to make a contribution, however little, to pay back some if not all of that cost. We have huge, wealthy animal non-profits in this area and not one of them offers a true community medical resource. My tiny non-profit PAW FUND did what we could for INCITE as soon as we found out about him. We obtained bags of fluids and showed the owner how to administrate them subcutaneously, we worked together with the local vet to get injectible antiobiotics and nausea medications to him every day and in the end, when INCITE's body could do no more, we paid for him to be humanely and gently released from his awful terrible disease. He died at the same vet office which diagnosed him with parvo, and the same vet gently eased him into death. He was loved. Very much.

RIVER meanwhile was cared for early and intensely by women who rescued her from a backyard situation and called PAW FUND for help. We hospitalised her, and paid for her treatment. And she will live a long and happy life. RIVER & INCITE - two young pups - worlds apart. Please help us pay for RIVER's treatment and save the next INCITE.