Dog News

Picture of Dog With “Terminal Illness” Moves Woman to Drop EVERYTHING and Adopt Him

by Fred

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Jaripo is an 18-year-old dog that not only broke the collective hearts of internet-users everywhere, but the heart of a particular woman was just devastated.  Her heart broke so hard over this pitiful picture of what had to be the saddest dog ever, that she literally dropped everything else she was doing in life to go on a mission to adopt him.

 

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According to the folks at the Lancaster County Animal Shelter in Los Angeles, Jaripo’s former humans had dumped him off there because they couldn’t pay to treat what they called a “terminal illness.”  They had said that the people advised the shelter that he’d need to be put down.

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The shelter staff decided that instead of simply taking them at their word, they’d hold off on putting him down and make a plea for help via social media outlets for him.  The request for help seemed like it would turn out like so many others before it; a whole lot of shares and supportive comments, but not a whole lot of actual interest in adoption.  Christina Morgan, founder of Paw Works in Ventura, California couldn’t help but notice this.

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“I get tagged in a lot of stuff on Facebook and I saw that this little (dog) was breaking the internet,” she said while speaking with The Dodo.  “Lots of people were tagging me.  All the rescues were looking at it. But no one was really taking action — and that’s a high-kill shelter.”

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Figuring that Jaripo’s story would end right about there, and deciding that wasn’t fair to Jaripo, Morgan packed up her car and drove to the shelter that he was at.  She called ahead of time to advise them of her desire to rescue Jaripo, but all they would tell her is that they could not guarantee that he’d still be around by the time she arrived.

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“They said, ‘If he needs to be put to sleep, we will do that,'” she says.

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As luck would have it, she did manage to get there in time.  Jaripo hadn’t been put down yet, and when the two finally met, you could tell Jaripo knew what was going on.  Morgan ended up taking Jaripo home that very day.  She was advised that he does have some pain in his hip and spine, and he did need some dental work, but none of that mattered to Morgan.

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So, after all of that it turns out that Jaripo is absolutely a senior dog, and yes there are complications that come along with that just like in humans.  However, when it comes to matters of “terminal illness,” the only terminal illness here was actually a condition known to many as “overcrowding.”  Luckily, the cure for that is just plain, old-fashioned love and care!

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That’s not all Morgan did though.  She saw that there were so many other animals facing imminent demise, and she knew she just couldn’t leave them all there.  So she did exactly what just about any of us would want to do, she adopted MORE!

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“I ended up leaving with a cat with a bullet in him, this old dog and four other dogs,” she says.

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