There’s a word I need you to know.

Pyometra.

Because I promise you, if you don’t learn it now, you’re going to learn it the worst possible way.. In an emergency room, in the middle of the night, with a doctor telling you your dog is dying.

Here is how it plays out. A female dog comes in..lethargic, vomiting, sometimes already crashing. Her uterus is filled with infection, toxins spilling into her body.This is not a “wait and see” situation or give some antibiotics and go home. This is emergency surgery or death.

And here’s the part that makes this unbearable..It was preventable. Every single time. What would have been a $300 spay becomes a $6,500 emergency surgery, if you’re lucky enough to even have that option. Because sometimes they don’t make it to surgery. Sometimes the infection has already taken too much. And sometimes… the decision becomes financial.

That’s the part no one wants to say out loud: Economic euthanasia.

A completely treatable condition of a preventable condition, ending in death because the cost of saving them came too late and for too much $$$$.

Before you get defensive..Just wait a minute. This is not about judgment. We know how life works.  Money gets tight, appointments get pushed. “It can wait.”…Until it can’t.

Pyometra doesn’t care if you meant well, or if you love your dog. It doesn’t care that you were planning to do it next month. It just happens.

Spaying your dog doesn’t just prevent pregnancy. It eliminates the risk of pyometra COMPLETELY.

It also drastically reduces the risk of mammary cancer. This isn’t a regular thing on your to-do- list. Its one of the most important medical decisions you will ever make for your girl.

And here’s the part where I remove every remaining excuse: Access is not the barrier it used to be. We’ve built it into this community.

Hearts Alive Village has two clinics:

HAV Decatur Clinic
3250 N Decatur Blvd

HAV Nellis Clinic
2255 S Nellis Blvd

There are people inside those buildings every day who will take care of your animal like they are their own. I am telling you this because we see emergency pyometra surgeries EVERYDAY. Too many people saying, “I didn’t know.”

Now you do.

If you have an unspayed female dog or cat..schedule it. (Yes, although not as common, it can happen to felines)

If you know someone who’s been putting it off…send this to them. If this makes you uncomfortable…good. That means it’s real.

They are counting on you to make decisions they don’t understand. Don’t let one of those decisions be the reason they don’t survive.

They are counting on us to make the decisions that protect them. That’s the responsibility we signed up for the moment we brought them home.

Let’s honor that.