Casey Lea was a perfect and very much wanted part of my family. Due to an unexpected medical problem, living with the potential consequences of keeping her was not a choice. Fortunately, the Humane Society of Waupaca County was there to help.

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Several years ago, on Valentine’s Day we decided to adopt our second dog, Casey. She was an older puppy who had been adopted and brought back to the Humane Society. As a beagle and blue-heeler mix, she was full of energy and was a lot of fun.

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Her favorite thing was to get her chest rubbed while she stood on my lap. If you wanted a dog with sparkling eyes and hello kisses you couldn’t ask for better. Casey had this way of wrapping her paws around my arm and pulling it toward her when she wanted to be patted. If you stopped patting her and she wasn’t done yet she would nudge your hands and push her way in closer.

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When we took her home, we wanted to be her forever home. We took her for lots of long walks, played tennis ball catch with her in the back field and let her race around between family members in the deep snow. She was so fast and never seemed to get tired out.

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My husband and I have two daughters. The oldest girl has asthma. The diagnosis happened two years ago, long after we adopted Casey. Our daughters have always grown up with a dog or dogs in our home, so we had no reason to expect that we would be unable to have them.

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Our oldest daughter had several severe asthma attacks that required hospitalizations. We had her allergy tested and one of the things that she is allergic to is dogs. We were told that for her health, we could no longer have dogs in our home.

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Our older dog, a Sheltie named Belle, was 11 years old. She was having continence issues and was in poor health. We came to the hard decision that we had to have her put down. We went to the vet and I held her in my arms until it was over. Belle was the sweetest dog I ever had and I miss her terribly.

Later that same week our oldest daughter had an asthma attack. We ended up briefly in the hospital again after being in the ER until 2:30am and being sent by ambulance to the hospital in Neenah. After seeing what our daughter went through we knew there was no choice. Even though we were grieving the loss of Belle, Casey had to be rehomed.

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If anything happened to our daughter because we didn’t let Casey go we would not have been able to live with it. I made the painful decision, and contacted the Humane Society of Waupaca County for help. I was told that I could bring Casey back.

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It took about two weeks to get everything organized. I took her for a last fun day at doggie daycare made sure her shots were current and took a copy of her health records with me. We packed up her favorite chew bones, beds, and other items to bring with her. Since the issue was that we could no longer have dogs, we had no reason to keep anything and we wanted to do anything to help Casey feel better as she moved on. It was really difficult to say goodbye because she could not understand that we were not doing this because we did not love or want her. I wish she could know how much I will always miss her.

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The only thing that gives me any comfort is that she has been given the chance for a good life. Not all dogs at a shelter have behavior issues. Sometimes dogs end up there that are good dogs that have had owners that were the issue. It is important for people to give these dogs a chance. We are very lucky in this community to have a place that makes such a strong commitment to serving the animals that pass through its doors such as the Humane Society of Waupaca County.

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Casey was adopted within a couple of weeks of being at the adoption center. I hope that all the love we filled her up with helped her find her forever home. We could never have given her the quality of life she deserved to have if we had tried in any way to move her outside to live. There was no way we could figure out that would work for her best interest. Sometimes love means letting go.

Thank you to the Humane Society of Waupaca County for being there to make a difference.