In 2015, they had purchased a house in Cleveland when they adopted Boomer, a pug and beagle designer breed, as their family pet.
“I had really wanted an English bulldog. They’re just cute, their face is squishy,” she says, adding she had been monitoring English bulldog rescue websites. “I won’t buy a puppy. I will only get a dog that needs a home.”
In September that year, the rescue organization emailed a desperate plea to its followers. Can anyone rescue an English bulldog named Chewy? Dr. Gulling-Leftwich immediately filled out the paperwork and adopted him. But Chewy only stayed with them for two weeks before he was euthanized. She brought him to the vet after he attacked Boomer.
“Chewy wasn’t being a jerk,” she says. “His attacking behavior had to do with his pain and discomfort. He had blood everywhere around his mouth. We had a hard time letting him go.”
One month later, another English bulldog named Olive joined their family. She’s roughly two years old and weighs only 30 pounds mainly because of her disease: congenital cardiomyopathy. They plan to care for Olive until she dies.
She says Olive takes six pills a day for her condition and occasionally receives nitroglycerin when she overexerts herself and passes out.
Meanwhile, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich and her husband care for one rat named Harvey and a cat called Lily in addition to the two dogs. Boomer doesn’t like Olive. Olive doesn’t like the cat. And both dogs and the cat pay no attention to the rat.
“My husband says rescuing animals and taking care of people is one of my more endearing qualities,” she says. “Then he follows it up with, ‘No, you can’t have that bunny that needs a home.’”
She believes caring for these animals balances her work in hospital medicine. While hospital patients often are in pain, act grouchy, and appear unappreciative, she says her four-legged family members are always excited to see her and routinely demonstrate unconditional love.
“You definitely have to be open-minded because you never know what you’ll be walking into when you rescue an animal,” she says, adding that rescue groups tend to pay for vet bills and medicine. “You have to be prepared for what potentially could be the worst.”
Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.