Beckett was emaciated, lived on a chain in a crawlspace under a house, was heartworm positive and barely alive when we rescued him. We continue in our effort to prosecute the abusive owner.

Beckett had a fabulous foster and a fantastic adopter who was to pick him up this weekend. His foster nurtured him to the point where he gained enough weight to be neutered and then taken through heartworm treatment. In the last couple of days he rapidly went downhill and we rushed him yesterday from our vet to Blue Pearl where multiple specialists and a cardiologist treated him. The echocardiogram revealed the right side of his heart had been destroyed by heartworm disease and he was just too far gone to save. 

We have been extraordinarily lucky as we have successfully treated hundreds of PYRS with heartworm disease with almost zero failures. This is simply not the case at other rescues and is greatly attributed to our experienced vet and our protocol of spending the time and money to properly treat this deadly disease. Beckett's heartworm disease had gone untreated too long and despite the many thousands of dollars we spent to make him better, too much damage had been done.

When properly treated, heartworm disease will have no negative effect on lifespan and we continue to underscore the importance of providing monthly heartworm preventative to the PYRS adopted from GPRA so we don't experience the anguish our entire organization has just lived through with Beckett.

With all our success saving so many of this magnificent breed, losing a Beckett just reinforces our determination to stay on our mission to rescue those most in need.