I Lost My 1-Year-Old Puppy After a Toy Squeaker Got Stuck Inside Him for 2 Months and I’m Completely Broken
I lost my dog Marvin to metastatic lung cancer after 9 years together, and losing him completely shattered me. About a year and a half later, I was finally able to open my heart again and got a 3-month-old puppy for free. His name was Bruno, and he honestly helped heal a part of me that I thought would stay broken forever.
He was so full of life and happiness. With Marvin, I was growing up while raising him, so there were things I couldn’t afford or fully understand yet. But with Bruno, I tried to do everything “right.” I took him to the park, daycare, training classes, the dog park, even a dog carnival. I got him good food, probiotics, a running water bowl — I truly tried my best to give him the happiest, healthiest life possible.
Then one random day in March, he threw up around 7 times in one day. I rushed him to the vet immediately. They did an X-ray and said they didn’t see a blockage, so they gave him antibiotics and assumed he ate something bad. He got a little better… then worse again. Back to the vet. More antibiotics. Better for a moment, then worse again.
This became a cycle for almost two months — vet visits, ER visits, medications, weight loss, slight improvement, then right back to being sick. At one point they thought maybe he ate cat poop and just had really sensitive GI issues. I switched his food, did everything I could to ease his discomfort, and kept hoping we’d finally find the answer.
Finally, after two months, a doctor suggested an ultrasound. The ultrasound alone was $600, and by then I had already spent thousands trying to save him. I was completely tapped out financially, so I made a GoFundMe. Thankfully, people donated and I was able to get the ultrasound a few days later.
That’s when they finally found something.
But then they told me the surgery would cost $3,000–$6,000, and I completely broke down because I simply didn’t have that kind of money. A local rescue stepped in and offered to pay for the surgery, which felt like such a blessing. The vet warned me that whatever was inside him had been there for so long that there might be severe damage once they opened him up… but I was praying so hard that he’d make it through.
When they operated, they found a squeaker from a toy.
That squeaker had been inside my baby for two months.
It had attached itself to his spleen and damaged his intestines so badly that they would have had to remove too much of them for him to ever have a good quality of life. So at only 1 year and 4 months old… I had to let him go.
I am devastated.
He followed me everywhere. He cuddled me constantly. He was healing me from losing Marvin, and now I’m grieving all over again. I keep replaying everything in my head wondering what I could’ve done differently. I always threw squeakers away when I saw them ripped out, but one slipped past me. I keep wondering why the ultrasound wasn’t suggested sooner. I feel like everything went wrong at every possible step.
And the hardest part is that he was just a baby. My baby.
I loved Bruno with my whole heart, and losing him this way feels so cruel and unfair.
I guess I’m sharing this because I just want to know if anyone else has gone through something similar. Right now I cry constantly, and I feel so broken. I could really use advice, support, or honestly just reassurance that I’m not alone in this.