Staxx Pasta, a three-year-old Biewer Terrier, had his owners wrapped around his little paw.
“He was a little king. Like I said, he was groomed more than anybody in the house,” said Tammy Pasta.
Tammy Pasta and her husband prioritized his health, so when Staxx stopped eating on January 12, they monitored him. After a day, he stopped barking.
“He wasn’t making a sound,” Pasta recalled.
They brought him to an emergency veterinarian hospital where they had to make a decision every pet owner dreads.
“He was going into kidney failure and liver failure,” said Pasta. “And [the veterinarian] let us know that we should probably come say our goodbyes.”
Four days after showing symptoms, Staxx was euthanized.
“See how yellow his neck and his belly, everything was just turned from one week difference. One week difference, and this is what it did,” said Pasta. “It’s so quiet here now. I just don’t have words for the absence that we feel.”
Test results came back positive for leptospiroris, a bacterial disease spread through the urine of infected animals.