On a recent morning, Luna went out in her yard in St. Petersburg, Florida, like she always does.
But when she came back inside, the 6-pound Chihuahua immediately ran under the bed — her family could tell something was wrong.
Two-year-old Luna was making a weird noise and jerking her throat, so her mom, Carolyn Knight, immediately gave Luna the Heimlich, but nothing really came out.
Even though Luna was fully responsive, Knight could tell something was still not right.
So, Knight and her son rushed Luna to the local animal hospital. Knight suspected that Luna had an obstruction in her throat, but tests came back negative. Finally, a chest X-rays “showed some concern.”
Luna went home, but she was going off to hide by herself and not eating. “I’m like, ‘You are not gonna die on me,’ you know, because that’s my daughter,” Knight said.
So, she took Luna back to the vet, who said Luna would need exploratory abdominal surgery to find the suspected obstruction.
The first bill had already been expensive, but the bill for the surgery was more than Luna’s family could manage.
“I burst out and started crying because I know I don’t have the funds to have surgery done,” Knight said.
And without the expensive surgery to solve the mystery of where the obstruction was, Luna wasn’t going to make it. Hoping to help, the vet told Knight he might have another option — it would save Luna’s life, but it meant giving her up.
Shortly after, Jaime McKnight got an urgent phone call that there was a Chihuahua who desperately needed her help and said yes right away. “She was in so much pain,” McKnight, the founder of Pawlicious Poochie Pet Rescue, said of Luna. “Even if you offered her food, she would just start to throw up.”
McKnight’s rescue offered to pay for Luna’s lifesaving surgery, which it could only do if Luna’s family legally signed over the dog to their permanent care. “I sat down with my kids,” Luna’s mom recalled, “and I said, ‘We have to give her up, which means she won’t be with us anymore. But we can’t let her die. That’s just not an option.’”
Heartbroken, Knight signed Luna over.
“I said, ‘Hey, Luna, I love you. We gotta do this for you to live, baby girl.’ And she was looking at me like she understood,” Knight said. “When I finally gave her to one of the workers, I just sat there and cried.”
With Luna under her care, McKnight at Pawlicious green-lit the exploratory surgery, though no one was certain exactly what they’d find.
When Luna had first come to the vet, Luna’s mom had told them that her neighbor has a mango tree that overhangs into her yard, and she thought Luna had grabbed a mango and eaten it underneath the bed that day before she could stop her.
However, since there was no mango seed on any X-rays, vets thought there might be a bowel obstruction that wasn’t showing up. Everyone crossed their fingers as Luna went into exploratory surgery, but when it was done, everyone was even more puzzled.
No mango seed was found in Luna’s stomach, and even worse, Luna was sicker than ever. That’s when they did a barium study and sent the X-rays to a specialist, and the results this time were shocking.
“You could barely, barely see it,” McKnight said. The “it” was the mango seed — lodged horizontally in Luna’s throat.
“That’s when the pieces started falling together, and it was just like a race against the clock,” McKnight explained. “We now know when she went to swallow, it was just like a totally ripping, piercing pain.”
McKnight rushed Luna to an emergency veterinarian who could perform the endoscopic surgery that Luna desperately needed to remove the seed. The surgeon warned her rescuer, though, that Luna’s chances of survival were slim.
“It was, like, the worst-case scenario, but I told him to try and save her,” McKnight said.
On Facebook, McKnight pleaded with fans of her rescue for donations: “Her only shot is this surgery.”
Luna not only survived the surgery — the mango seed was removed — but she did so with flying colors and was able to go home with McKnight that evening.
“She was eating that night when I got her back, and she is now chowing down,” McKnight said. “She’s running around.”
Luna’s mom was so glad that Luna had pulled through, but she missed her terribly. She kept in touch with McKnight through the whole process and was grateful for any updates. She started a GoFundMe in the hopes that she could raise money to pay back the rescue.
While the GoFundMe didn’t work, Knight’s friends and family gave to her directly, and she was able to give Pawlicious a donation for a portion of Luna’s care.
Meanwhile, at McKnight’s house post-surgery, Luna was back to living like a queen. “She’s literally smiling,” McKnight said. “She looks like a cartoon character. I’ve been getting her nice little rotisserie chickens, and she loves that, because the chicken’s soft. She’s taking her meds, and she’s just been enjoying herself.”
But there was still one thing left to do. McKnight had decided not to adopt Luna out to another family when she already had one who loved her.
“Her owners have stayed in touch and they truly are so grateful,” McKnight said. “And I think it’s going to be a super emotional reunion, because they truly do love her.”
Luna’s mom couldn’t believe it when she found out that Luna would come home.
“I jumped for joy, and I cried,” Knight said. “And I said [to Jaime], ‘I’m crying tears of joy right now. I am forever grateful for you and all that you do.’”
On reunion day, about a week after Luna’s surgery, Luna couldn’t stop kissing her mom, as well as Knight’s daughter, Jonishia.
“She’s a once-in-a-lifetime pup, and she really did beat the odds,” McKnight said. “I think everybody was just like, ‘Whoa, she made it to the other side.’ So, now she’s got her whole life ahead of her, and I think it’s just a good story all the way around.”
