08/18/2026
Selena 🌈🌈🐾
Selena was surrounded by 3 people who loved her as she crossed the rainbow bridge this morning.
For those of you rooting for her and praying for her, thank you! She had a harder life than she deserved. But these last months she's had with us were likely some of the best she's ever had. She had the quirkiest circling behavior when she was nervous, happy, excited, confused, anything. LOL It was truly a quirk only people who loved her could love. She LOVED her friends at doggie daycare. She loved playing ball. And we loved her because she was ours to love. When no one else would. We don't take lightly that these dogs trust us to make decisions in their best interest. They trust us with everything.
We knew we caught "it" early, and she was taken to Blue Pearl as soon as she was observed with a distended stomach. X-rays were taken and then sent to radiology. Given the initial observation and the severity of her case, the vet wondered if the stomach flipped a full 360 degrees. Radiology requested additional x-rays of the esophagus. Those were taken. It didn't appear to be blocked on the film, but the distention was so severe. The recommended next step was to see if they could even get a tube down her throat and also allow them to remove some gas as it was a concern that her stomach may rupture. They were able to remove some gas/fluid but she almost immediately filed back up. Even sedating her to do this was a concern as she was not stabilized. The vet said, "This is an ER, we get bloat cases all the time. But this is unusual." It happened fast, and yes, bloat happens fast, but this was unusually fast.
Why do I give so many details (and this isn't even all of them) about the awful decision we were faced with? Because so many people had opinions about what they know of bloat. "They should have done surgery immediately." "Why did they wait?" Not all dogs who bloat can be saved. That's the reality.
There was no waiting, there is a process to make sure you're making the right decisions for the dog in front of you, you can't just cut a dog open with no game plan. And if you're doing that, it's not in the best interest of the dog. The vet expressed to us how grave and critical Selena's case was. Since the case was so unusual, the next step would have been exploratory surgery to uncover what was causing such severe distention. To jump into surgery without really even understanding what was going on, wasn't the answer for us. If surgery would have given her a fighting chance, we would have done it. We could have done surgery, if nothing else, to give ourselves as humans, the answers we think we deserve. The chances of her making it through surgery were not great, they weren't even good. You don't just put a dog through surgery just so you can say you tried to save them. It's not fair.
She deserved to have people who loved her with her in her last moments. Not to die in surgery without them. The people who loved her deserved to be with her in those moments. And they were.
