"Let's give the fella a chance."
That's not something people said even a decade ago when animals with defects at birth were always euthanized.
And they still are euthanized, but a new ethic is emerging among animal lovers to use medical technology combined with heaps of love to give the outcasts a chance.
That's what happened to a 20-day-old pitbull puppy. Extremely tiny at birth, the puppy, named Goosie, had no nose. Her cleft palate had literally bent her nostrils under the top of her mouth.
But the people at Virginia's Sanctuary Rescue took her in, loving her through many trips to the vet, where they discovered the little pooch had another problem they didn't know about: A form of dwarfism. So the potato sized puppy would always be small.
Still, Goosie did grow. She grew in a playful, feisty spirt, demanding all the animals at her foster farm play with her. She jousted with the pig. She chased the chickens. She teased the cat and challenged her 96-pound brother dog. She reached all of 11 joyful pound, feasting on her favorite food, meatballs. On her first birthday, she was photographed in a tutu and oodles of newspapers wrote about her. The DoDo made a video of her and she went totally viral. She even had her own parade.
And, then she got pneumonia. Very serious pneumonia. The vet discovered she had a heart problem. And on one weekend in July 2019 she died.
Was it all worth it; all the trips to the vet, the worry, the laughing, the love? Yes, says Adri Herron, president of the rescue. The experience left a lasting lesson:
"Be kind. Take pride in your work. Spread joy. Smile at strangers. Tip big. Approach difficult situations with an open and understanding heart. If we can't have our Goose anymore then at least we can recycle the joy she gave us out into the world."
