Sienna our little lab mix puppy left us a week from the day we picked her up and brought her home.

She was full of energy, curiosity, and life when last Tuesday she started showing symptoms of what we thought was a parasite or difficulties with transitioning to new food.

She had diarrhea and vomiting but was better by Tuesday night and Wednesday morning; eating again and wanting to play.

By Thursday morning we knew she needed to go to the vet. She had no energy, had not eaten or drunken anything for half a day.

I called the foster whom we got her from to get information about our 30-day pet insurance. She told me she left a message with my husband: 3 of Sia’s other litter mates had been found sick with Parvo.

If you do not know, as I didn’t know a few weeks ago, Parvo is a highly infectious dog virus that can be transmitted easily especially in certain breeds such as labs. It takes 7-10 days from infection to begin to show symptoms. She was sick before she arrived in upstate New York, before we took her home.

I took her in Thursday morning through the back entrance because she was infectious. They put her on an IV drip and tried to treat the symptoms. Because it is a virus there is no cure only ways to ease symptoms and hope the body fights off the virus.

All we could do is wait and pray she would fight it off. Her siblings did well after several days of hospitalization. But she was skinny, small, and hadn’t eaten. She had already fought off so much before we even got her.

Friday morning she was worse; the infection had reached her lungs. Saturday morning we heard she was in the fetal position and unresponsive. That is when we knew she was waiting to let go. We prepared ourselves to say goodbye, then got the news that night she didn’t make it.

Today we will bury her in our yard and plant perennial spring blooming flowers where she rests. We are grateful to have had her for the week that we did. She brought us joy and we hope that her time with us was a blessing to her as it was to us.