Shanna Sonnier, RichmondMom.com reader shared with us the story of her beloved dog Paco.
“We adopted Paco from the SPCA 7 years ago, wanting to find our American bulldog a play mate. He immediately grabbed my heart. He had a great personality, very energetic and gave our bulldog some extra spunk as well. He was wonderful with our kids, he loved to play with them, lie on the floor and let them crawl all over him. “
Paco was exceedingly patient, says Shanna, “He never once seemed to mind my son tugging on his ears or my daughter laying on him with her blanket. He loved to snuggle with you and would pull his blanket over him on his dog bed at night to be under the covers, which was another one of his favorite things to do.”
At Paco’s yearly check up they found a lymph node that was inflamed and immediately thought it was lymphoma, the biopsy came back negative, so the Sonniers were over joyed and thankful. They took Paco back in a week later to have the stitches removed from the biopsy and the vet determined Paco punctured his saliva gland by chewing on stick, which made the lymph node inflamed from an infection. The vet gave Paco a clean bill of health and said there would be no alarm for concern.
“The next day I noticed Paco was having a hard time coming up the stairs and was very unstable on his feet. I called the vet immediately and took him in, it was determined Paco had a seizure. Later that evening Paco suffered another seizure. They ran test and could not come up with why he was having them. They told me to take him home and Paco should be better by morning.”
Unfortunately, the next morning Paco still could not function was not able to walk well and appeared to be in a state he could not recover from. The Sonniers took Paco to their regular vet; they sedated him, and determined he had a lesion on his brain, caused from the seizures the night before, something he would not be able to recover from.
Sadly the Sonniers had to put him down that evening.
Shanna’s children took it hard; especially her older daughter. To ease the pain, they took helium balloons outside and released them, sending them up to “Paco, in doggy heaven.” It was comforting—even for the adults.
Thank you for this sweet idea, and for being a great Richmond mom—to pets and kiddos alike—Shanna.
