Best Christmas Ever For Two Lake Elsinore Girls

The following is a letter to the editor about a Christmas present too good to be true for two little Lake Elsinore girls:

I have a Christmas story I wanted to share to show our appreciation for all the efforts of Mountain View Small Animal Hospital in Lake Elsinore to make a Christmas surprise for our girls.

Four weeks ago my wife and I purchased a 6-week-old Miniature Schnauzer puppy for our 7- and 4-year-old girls as an early Christmas gift after waiting four years for a new family dog.

We named her Lacey.

To our shock, the puppy had a birth defect that we did not know about within a couple of days of bringing her home. We took her to the Mountain View Animal Hospital in Lake Elsinore to Dr. Hemple and his staff. After five unsuccessful procedures, the doctors could not fix her without attempting major surgery, and even with surgery we would have no guarantee that the new procedure would work for her. The surgery would have cost us over $2,000 and we simple did not have the funds to save our puppy.

After the fifth procedure attempt we had to take her back to Mountain View to have her put down. Obviously our little girls were devastated by the loss of their puppy and so were we -- when your children hurt so do you, especially when you can't fix the problem. 

Dr. Hemple asked if we would allow him to try and correct Lacey's problems and give up custody of her. As adoptive parents, we were faced with the difficult decision that the birth parents of our daughters made and that is to allow someone else to do for ours what we could not do for them.

We knew that we wanted this puppy to have a chance to survive. Even though we did not have the finances, we knew the doctor would do his best -- even though she was no longer our puppy. She now belonged to Mountain View, and if she did make it through surgery or if she didn't, we would never know as she was no longer ours.

It had been a little over two weeks since we had to say our "goodbye" to Lacey our Miniature Schnauzer.

To our surprise, we received a call from the Mountain View Small Animal Hospital a few days ago that told us that the doctor completed the surgery on Lacey and that she was doing well and she was ready for us to take her home!

The doctors and the staff at Mountain View wanted our girls to have their Christmas present back and to surprise our family, a surprise indeed!

We were in awe that these doctors knew we were financially unable to give this puppy surgery, and the team took it upon themselves to do everything they possible could do for her so that our little girls could get their puppy back home before Christmas.

Our family had no idea that little Lacey was still alive and was actually recovering from three separate surgeries the doctors performed on her. We had no idea that the day we said goodbye to her that the doctors at Mountain View intended to do everything they could to get her better for our family -- we are truly thankful and simply speechless for all the hard work and dedication the doctors and the staff at Mountain View Small Animal Hospital did for our family this Christmas.

We took our girls back to the Mountain View Small Animal Hospital so that the staff could give her back to our family. Our girls knew we were going to Mountain View to drop off Christmas goodies to the staff for Christmas. Our girls had no idea that they were there to take home little Lacey. 

Upon our arrival the staff anxiously greeted us at the front door -- the girls walked in and there was little Lacey wearing a Santa hat ready to come home! 

The girls were so surprised and speechless that they had tears welling up in their little eyes and were amazed that the doctors and the staff made our puppy all better and saved her life. 

It is very unusual these days to find good-hearted people. This has truly been a Christmas present that our family will always remember: the efforts and the love of Dr. Hemple and the staff at Mountain View Small Animal Hospital.

Much Appreciated,
Tom and Carrie Myrick
Lake Elsinore