Mia out and about (David Guralnick / The Detroit News)Mia the dog who survived euthanasia a month ago has been give a new lease on life and is up and about thanks to the help of people from all over the world and a local veterinarian providing the treatments. Mia will be moving in with a new family in the next few weeks and will be able to spend the rest of her life in a loving environment with other dogs and a family that cares about her.
The 11-year-old Mia suffers myriad medical problems, some age related. She has a ruptured disk in her spine. Her right rear leg is partly paralyzed. She has arthritis in her hips and spine. The ailments left Mia immobile, in pain and uninterested in eating. Lacking the money to help her, Olivarez decided to have her euthanized last month since he could not afford the treatment necessary and it seemed that her fight for life was gone and it was the humane thing to do. Only something went wrong and she was found alive in her owners garage the next morning looking for food. Faced with the unbelievable decision of how to proceed and what he should tell his children he allowed fate to intervene and the help came pouring in.
When this story first came to light it caused quite a storm of shock and disbelief in how something like this can happen. From what I have found out this is a very very very rare occurrence in dogs and cats as most vets will overdose for what they think a pet needs so that something like this could never happen in their practices. Veterinarians take Euthanasia very seriously as most will only use it as a last resort when everything else has been tried or the animal is too old to endure treatment and would just be living in constant pain.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20101109/METRO01/11090370#ixzz14o99uxxJ