Squeaker Deserved Better

Today I’m heartbroken and angry because my baby Squeaker, my dog of eleven years, is dead, and he should have had at least a few more years left. He was twelve years old, a miniature pinscher. He was more than just a pet to me. In many ways, he was my first, the first one who chose me, who didn’t gravitate to someone else in the family. He was my emotional support animal, and in many ways, though it wasn’t official, my service dog. He would alert my mom when I wasn’t doing well, calm me when I was anxious, and just be with me on bad days. He always managed to make me smile.

I’ve been separated from him for four months because I had to move into a nursing home. He was stuck with David, an abusive former friend of my mom. My mom needed to get us out, away from David, and she couldn’t do it and care for me at the same time. She tried to get help to get us both out, but no one would help, so she had to say she could no longer care for me and force Adult Protective Services to move me here. She’s now staying at a trailer a friend let her use, but we had to leave the animals behind with David.

Squeaker had a heart murmur and two badly infected teeth. He was supposed to be on heart medicine twice a day. When we left, that medicine of course stopped. My mom offered to pay for the medicine, for vet visits, but David refused. He as good as killed Squeaker.

A couple weeks ago, David told my mom Squeaker had been sick, not breathing well, and he’d had to get him a humidifier to help him breathe. But yet he still didn’t get the medicine. When I heard this, I was concerned and called the sheriff’s department to ask for a welfare check on Squeaker. A cop went out to the house, maybe briefly looked at him, and told me he was fine. Obviously he wasn’t. We thought maybe David had told my mom Squeaker was sick to trigger the welfare check and make her look unstable. Now, we believe he really was sick.

I’ve been trying to get him away from David. I asked Sherry, my Disability Rights Texas advocate, about help doing so, as I had a letter stating that Squeaker was my emotional support animal. She was looking into it, but it was taking longer than we expected to figure anything out.

Two days ago, I got a call from the Bandera Veterinary Clinic. They called me, Squeaker’s owner, asking for David’s number. David was supposed to bring him in for cremation and hadn’t shown up yet, so they wanted to call him. They were going to cremate Squeaker with no questions asked.

Naturally, I called my mom, freaking out. She wasn’t able to go get him right away because she was hospitalized, but she went first thing this morning and picked him up. We’ve been trying to find someone to do a necropsy all day.

Bandera Veterinary Clinic offered to do the necropsy for $300. But when my mom got upset with them for almost cremating Squeaker with no questions asked, and for not planning to contact either of us about his death, the woman who quoted that price said she wouldn’t do it anymore.

We went to our regular vet, Cutting Edge Pet Clinic. They said that because of how long it’s been since he died, his body needs a special kind of necropsy, and that’s why it costs so much. Nearly $1800.

They also don’t think we’ll find anything that proves David is at fault. My mom put it plainly: for all we know, he could have a bottle of the medicine, pour half of it out, and claim he’d been giving it to Squeaker this whole time. The vet said that with heart conditions like Squeaker’s, other organs start to fail, so the necropsy may not show a clear answer. She said we could try Texas A&M if we still want to go through with it, and they might charge less.

So that’s where we are. My mom is making calls right now, trying to figure out what to do. I don’t know if we’ll get proof. I don’t know if it would change anything if we did.

What I know is that Squeaker is dead. A man was offered paid medicine and paid vet visits and let him go without either. A cop looked at him and said he was fine. A vet clinic was ready to cremate him with no questions asked. And now the people willing to help are telling us we might never prove what happened.

And Squeaker wasn’t the only one we left behind. There are still animals there with David. I think about them too.

A few days ago, I was one house away from him. My mom took me out to get my birth certificate, and we stopped at the house next door to David’s. David knew we were there, or at least he knew my mom was. I kept hoping and dreading to hear him bark. I never did.

There were times I wished I could have had him here with me. But the one time we tried to bring him to the nursing home, it was too much for him, so we never did it again. I thought there would be more time. I never got to say goodbye.

I’m sharing this because I don’t want it to be quiet. Squeaker deserved his medicine, and his vet visits, and someone who would keep him alive. He was my dog. He chose me. And he deserved better than all of this.