A family from California that was going through a personal heartbreak helped save a German shepherd 30 minutes before he was going to be put down. Since welcoming the canine into their home, they’ve all received their happy ending.
Thirty-four-year-old Trish Bauer from San Bernardino was reeling from the loss of her daughter when she came across a 12-year-old dog, Wilbur, on her Instagram feed.
“Last February we lost our daughter, Millie,“ Ms. Bauer told The Epoch Times. ”She was born without a heartbeat. And I went through this really, dark time.”
Since sleeping was “impossible,” Ms. Bauer would lie in bed scrolling on her phone until her brain finally switched off. During the wee hours before Christmas Eve of 2022, she came across a reel of a dog. Alongside the short video was a line stating, “I die tomorrow alone on this cold cement floor.”
Looking at his picture, the first thing the grieving mom noticed was his eyes.
“They completely drew me in because I felt like his eyes looked like my eyes,” she said. “He was defeated with life ... and I knew that look.”
She wrote: “If you need someone to pick them up or hold him for 24 hours that I could do that.”
Switching off her phone and placing it on the nightstand, a thought lingered in her mind: “Did I just comment on a German shepherd? That was not a cat.”
Ironically, Ms. Bauer runs a cat rescue and has always been scared of dogs.
She fell asleep not expecting anything to come of it. However, the next morning, she woke up to a message from Furry Tail Endings stating that all the offers to help Wilbur had fallen through, and the dog was going to be euthanized in the next 30 minutes.
A mad dash to make it to the shelter ensued. Ms. Baeur woke up her 10-year-old daughter, Lily Baeur, informing her that they were going to rescue the dog.
“She thought I was joking with her the whole time,” Ms. Baeur said. “She was like ‘No, how many cats is it, Mom? We’re not going to go get a dog.’”
The family didn’t have a proper leash for a dog, so they picked up a cat leash and dashed to Riverside Animal Shelter, a short drive away from their home. They arrived in the nick of time. A lot of paperwork ensued, as per Californian regulations, a member of the public is not permitted to enter a shelter and remove a dog that is on a kill list, or even see it in person. The rescue must be able to pull the dog out and act as an intermediary first.
After completing the necessary procedure, Ms. Bauer and Lily waited and weren’t sure of what to expect.
“All we knew was that he was an 85-pound (38.5-kilogram) senior German shepherd and that he was friendly with another dog in his kennel,“ Ms. Bauer said. ”There was no notation on how he was with kids or adults or a leash, nothing. So, we just had to wait.”
The moment the 12-year-old dog was brought out, he went ran straight toward Lily, licking her and greeting her.
“I just knew at that point, ‘Okay. This is meant to be.’ A dog like this who knows nothing but a fight for life; this is not how his life should end,“ Ms. Bauer said. ”He has so much love inside of him.”
As the mother-daughter pair were leaving the shelter, they spotted a big red bucket with puppies that were 8 weeks old being wheeled toward the euthanization area.
The family left the shelter that day saving not only a senior dog but also five puppies. On the drive back home, Ms. Bauer informed her husband, Josh Bauer, 37, about their rescue mission.
Wilbur, who was later named Cooper by the Bauer family, treated the puppies with a lot of care. “He would give them kisses; he would share his food,” Lily said.
Within the next two days, all the puppies found their forever home.
Initially, the family intended to simply foster and care for Cooper until the rescue found him a forever home. But then, something unexpected happened: the family learned that Cooper had cancer.
“He hadn’t been groomed in a very long time, and his hair was very matted,” Ms. Bauer said. “He had what looked like an abscess on his neck, and we just thought it needed to be drained.”
The family took Cooper to their vet, who diagnosed him with a tumor. The results showed that Cooper had severe malnutrition and the vet believed that the German shepherd had been living on the streets for at least five years. A “walking time bomb,” it was determined that the dog would need lifesaving surgery in the next six weeks.
“We were shocked,” Ms. Bauer said. “He was a very active dog, definitely for his age. Lily is a cancer survivor, and we’ve lived in a land of cancer our whole lives. So it was shocking that this random dog out of the hundreds of dogs that were on that euthanization list, the one that we went to go pick up, was in for the fight for his life that we know all too well.”
The family rallied together to support Cooper, and he underwent surgery in January. Most of the muscle surrounding his neck had to be removed, resulting in a total of 47 stitches. It was a risky procedure for the senior dog, but not only did Cooper make it through; he came running out of the surgery room to his waiting family.
“He was like ‘My family! They came back for me,'” Lily said.
The following month, as the couple commemorated their late daughter’s first birthday and were ordering a cake, it ended up being a really “hard day.” However, during that time, the family received a call informing them that Cooper’s pathology results had come back clear.
“I knew at that moment that it was just meant to be, you know, he was home,” Ms. Baeur said. “And as much as he deserved that happy ending, so did we.”
As Cooper was adopted by the Bauer family he also assisted them in finding a memorial spot for Millie up in the San Bernadino mountains. Here, he held up a sign that read, he beat cancer. Additionally, he also played a pivotal role in supporting Mr. Bauer through the grieving process.
“Men go through grief so differently,” said Ms. Bauer, who almost died during the delivery. “He was dealing with taking care of me, and he had the world on his shoulders. He couldn’t really grieve like he needed to. And this dog came along and filled up his heart in a way that allowed him to grow and grieve at the same time.
“Seeing my husband connect so much to this dog was really my proof that his little girl sent him that dog and knew that it was going to take loving something, to grieve what he lost.”
Sixth-grader Lily agrees: “The reason we kept Cooper and he has such a great connection with us is, it’s like he loves to cuddle. When we started fostering him and taking care of his incision and stuff, we were going through a really hard time.”
Cuddling Cooper has filled the family with inner happiness.
“It’s just such a reassuring feeling, knowing that your fight was worth it, and your fight saved a life. And all he needed was somebody to care, you know,” Ms. Bauer said. “And it was our wink from heaven, you know, after everything that we’ve gone through in that last year.”
Ms. Bauer believes that it’s easier to save a dog from the fate of euthanization than most people think.
