Thursday, March 29, 2007

Remembering Allie


Allie was my baby that never grew up. She weighed 6 lbs. and slept with us every night. Her favorite times were going up to Michigan in the summer trying to catch a fish or waiting for the boat ride to the icecream store. Such happy times.

Pet food Recall- Remembering our Allie


Our beloved Allie was such a big part of our family. She was only 5 years old when we lost her, February 16, 2007. Allie woke up as she always did with us. She seemed fine to me, although days before she had some diarrhea. I thought she had a simple stomach bug. She had also been excessively thirsty. My husband and son went to get their haircut. I was cleaning and I noticed Allie had thrown up her food. It was a beautiful cool morning, so I let her out side while I cleaned it up. Minutes later I went out to get her and I couldn't find her. I began to panic. At first I thought she was digging in the dirt, when I saw her I realized she was having a seizure, which she had never done before. I grabbed her in my arms and got my 8 year old daughter. I knew it was bad. I realized it was Saturday and the vet would be closed. We ran to my neighbors to help me. By the time my neighbor answered the door, Allie stopped shaking and her eyes were fixed. I knew she was gone. My daughter was screaming for me to do something. It was horrible. In just minutes she was gone.


This happened days before the dog food recall. My good friend is a vet and saw Allie frequently. One of the first things she asked when we talked about how Allie died was could she have gotten into rat poisoning. We knew our house and knew she had not gotten into anything. We were devastated and had no answers of how she died. Days went by and we heard of the pet food recall. We had only given Allie dry Iams. It was not in the recall but in our hearts we feel this was some how tainted. That very week, we heard of 3 friends who lost their pets suddenly.


We miss our sweet Allie so much and nothing can bring her back. My daughter still breaks down in tears missing Allie. She is scared to be by herself after since seeing Allie die in my arms.


It has been 5 weeks since she passed away and we still light a candle every night over her little grave. It is hard enough losing a pet of natural causes or even an accident. Now reading that the food we were giving her was tainted scares me to death and the dog food companies are not being held responsible. I feel this is a much bigger problem than the media is reporting. Our pets are a part of our family. My heart feels for all the pet owners who are going through such similar situations with their beloved pets.
All we have are the cherished memories of the short time we had with Allie.