Family adopts senior dog, discovers she has cancer, so they did something amazing
Melissa Davis and her family adopted Kaylee knowing they might not get to have the elderly dog for long. Then they found out Kaylee was dying of cancer, and they were getting even less time than they’d thought.
So the Davises were determined to make every single day special for Kaylee. And that’s just what they did.
It all started last spring, when Melissa Davis’ 9-year-old, Raven, began asking if the family could adopt an elderly dog.
“When she realized that old dogs die in the shelter with no family to love them, she was heartbroken. She started begging for us to adopt ‘an old dog no one else wants’ so that it could have a family before it died,” Davis told TODAY.
But the 33-year-old mom had reservations. The family already had five rescue cats and two dogs, plus two kids at their home in Odenton, Maryland.
“I worried about the additional commitment and financial impact. I also worried about how hard it would be on the kids to potentially lose a pet soon after adopting it,” Davis said.
After talking the idea through, and running the numbers, Raven’s idea began to seem more feasible. Davis started to peruse dogs on the website for BARCS, Baltimore’s animal shelter. That’s where she found Kaylee “and fell in love with her sweet face,” she said.
In June, the Davises went to meet Kaylee in person. Shelter staff warned the family that Kaylee had some serious medical issues, like a torn ACL, a urinary tract infection and kidney disease.
“But we wanted to meet her anyway,” Davis said. “When they brought her outside to us, I knelt down on the ground and Kaylee leaned into my chest. I knew she was ours right then.”
Kaylee had gone through some tough times just before meeting the Davises. A few weeks earlier, at 11 years old, Kaylee had been surrendered to BARCS. Her previous family found themselves unable to afford the aging dog’s increasingly expensive veterinary care. They brought Kaylee to the shelter for euthanasia.
But to BARCS’ veterinarians, Kaylee didn’t seem like a dog who was ready for her life to end; the shelter staff asked Kaylee’s former family if she could be put up for adoption instead.
The Davises took Kaylee home on June 12, ready to spoil the dog rotten for the rest of her life — which they thought, at the time, they’d get to measure in years. Quickly they learned that life would likely be far shorter. Their family vet diagnosed Kaylee with metastasized thyroid cancer.
Because of her age and health, aggressive treatment wasn’t an option. Kaylee was given just a few months to live. Her family was determined to make those months amazing.
The Davises created “Kaylee’s Bucket List.” The first and most important item on that list had already been accomplished: finding a family. After that came the activities Kaylee seemed most to enjoy, like going out for ice cream, eating burgers and having breakfast in bed.
“You’ll see a lot that involve food,” said Davis.
Kaylee also got a birthday party, visited a special home for other elderly dogs called the Senior Dog Sanctuary of Maryland, and enjoyed a short and gentle hike. She had lots of car rides and witnessed this summer’s solar eclipse.
Source: Today
