Avery's Adventure: Christmas time is always the worst for us.

Reagan finally ended up coming home after 8 days in the hospital. It was a rough 8 days. The 6th day of her illness was the worst. She was breathing so fast, there were talks about intubating her. Luckily, she finally started getting better and we didn't need to do that. She ended up coming home on 1/2/17. It was so nice to have her home and not have to travel back and forth to the hospital. It was also so nice to not have to sleep at the hospital in a hard chair or on a bench.

We suffered more difficult times on January 4. It kills me to have to relive this while I write about it but if it could prevent it from happening to anyone else then I will be happy. I came home from work and only Chewie greeted me at the door. Normally they both come running up to me, Chewie bringing me a bone, and Scarlett being so excited, she would wag her butt so much that her tail would hit her in the face. Only Chewie greeted me that day. I knew right away something was wrong. I will never forget the sight I saw and I am sure I will have nightmares about it. I found Scarlett, limp on the ground, with a plastic bag on her head. I shouted to her, ran over to her and pulled the bag off of her head. She had vomitted and had spit and vomit on her mouth but I didn't care. I held her muzzle closed and put my mouth over her nose and mouth and gave her some breaths. I then tried giving her some chest compressions, all while searching for "pet CPR" on You Tube. She was limp but still warm so I carried her to the car. That was no easy task. Its not that she weighs a lot, its because I am a wimp. I put her in the car and drove to the nearest vet. Of course it was around rush hour time and there was a lot of traffic. I kept pushing on her chest, while driving. Every light I stopped at, I would bend down and breathe into her mouth. I knew it was probably too late but I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't do everything I could to try to help her.

Tim had been on his way home from taking Reagan to her hospital follow up appointment. I called him and told him to meet me at the vet. I also called my parents asking them to pick up Avery from daycare.

I arrived at North Royalton Animal Hospital, ran inside crying and asked someone to come out and help me with Scarlett. They grabbed some people and even a little board/stretcher to put her on and brought her inside. I signed forms saying to do whatever possible to try to save her. Tim and Reagan showed up and we sat and waited..and or course cried. The vet then came in and told us they did everything they could but that she couldn't be helped. They brought us Kleenex and water and let us sit with Scarlett as long as we wanted.
We ended up getting her cremated and just got her back yesterday. She is in a nice wooden box with her name engraved.
I want to thank the staff at the North Royalton Animal Hospital. They were so nice to us and we have never even been there before that day. I think we are going to start taking our animals there from now on.
Please do not leave any bags around. The crazy part is that it wasn't even a plastic grocery bag. It was a bag that comes inside a Cheez It box. The Cheez Its were sitting on an end table that day next to the couch and Scarlett must have gotten into it. It is such a freak accident because our dogs have NEVER taken food off the table like that so I didn't even think to put them away. If we can prevent another dog from suffering the way Scarlett did then I will be happy. I found online that apparently, it is pretty common. http://preventpetsuffocation.com/. This is the facebook page where people have posted stories of their pets passing away from suffocating due to any kind of bags.
https://www.facebook.com/PreventPetSuffocation/

Scarlett was the best first pup Tim and I could have ever asked for. Neither of us had dogs growing up. We adopted her a month after we got married. She was 11 weeks old and amazing. She didn't have one accident. She made me think having a puppy was a breeze and I had no idea why people said having a puppy was so difficult...until we got Chewie. When we first got her, she used to go everywhere with Tim. We then decided to get another dog 6 months later. I will never forget the excitement on Scarlett's face when we brought Chewie home from the shelter. She looked at Tim and I and was like "is that for me?". She was so excited and they quickly became the best of friends. Scarlett would hold a ball in her mouth and run around the yard and chase Chewie with it. She was stubborn in the fact that I knew she was smart enough to ring the bell to go outside (like Chewie does) but she never wanted to do it.

Chewie has been really depressed since she died. He just lays on the couch all day. We have talked about getting a new friend for Chewie but we have a lot going on at the moment. We are going to start looking at the shelters in the spring. We adopted both Chewie and Scarlett from the Northeast Ohio SPCA and they have been amazing dogs so we will go there again.

One of my favorite pics of them. They look like an old married couple driving in a car